Broken Birds
by Razor Scion
Summary: The Doctor wanders into the Sekirei plan.
1. Chapter 1

Never seen a crossover fic for these two universes. Decided to give it a shot on a whim.

Let me know if I've done well or critically failed.

* * *

The Doctor looked on listlessly. Nothing meant anything to him any more, not after what he'd had to do to Donna Noble, robbing her of the memories and times they had shared together had left him dead inside. That of course only brought on more memories. Nine hundred years of failures, nine hundred years of mistakes, missed opportunities… the things he could have done and the things he should have done… and the things he should never have even tried… the fiasco with the waters of Mars had only confirmed to him what an utter failure he could be at times… and the monster he could become. The TARDIS thrummed in response. A surge of warmth that both were and weren't words. Images flashed through his mind of Rose, saving the world time after time after time, his countless triumphs, the innumerable souls who owed their lives to him however little they were aware of it.

He stroked the TARDIS gently and appreciatively. He admired the effort but right now… right now he needed to feel this way. The pain he felt was natural and right… to feel nothing after what he'd done would have made him a monster.

The TARDIS however had no wish to feel the Doctor wallow in his own misery over the next few centuries. On its own accord it lurched one way and then shambled another, sending the Doctor sprawling to and fro.

"What?" shouted the Doctor in surprise.

He ran to the controls only to have another lurch throw him.

"What!" he exclaimed.

The Doctor lunged for the controls just in time for the TARDIS to stop shimmying, which sent him flying unceremoniously into the console. On its own accord the TARDIS became quiescent, even on the mental bond it shared with the Doctor. It was akin to being in the middle of a heated argument only to have the louder and more obstinate part of the argument suddenly shut up and walk away.

"What?" he muttered before picking himself up.

First thing was first. He checked the monitor to see exactly where the TARDIS had dropped him off. The monitor flickered static at him until he tapped it gently a few times. The image cleared and he saw a park at night in the rain. He thumped the image again, harder this time, to get more details.

He was on Earth. That was a relief. In Tokyo... Japan! He hadn't been there since he'd helped Susanoo fight a Hydra back in his younger days long before his granddaughter had been born…

He swatted the memories before they could overwhelm him. His head was so thick with memories he swore he needed a bigger head to hold them all in there.

As with all his decisions the Doctor decided in a snap that he'd go for a gentle stroll in the rain. There was nothing wrong with the TARDIS but some fresh air was definitely in order. Fresh air followed by tea. He'd checked the date and he was certain he'd be safe enough. Godzilla wasn't going to attack the city for at least another eighty years anyway.

* * *

Akitsu sat alone on a park bench as the rain cascaded down softly around her. People went about their business, walking by hurriedly to keep out of the rain, no one noticed her. Although she was draped immodestly in a white lab coat she may as well have been invisible. She looked down forlornly.

_Useless_, she thought, _I am useless and broken. No one will want to be my Ashikabi._

The drizzling rain made her cold. Cold. It was one of the things she could still feel, all else was numb. As long as she was a discarded number, as long as she bore the Sekirei mark on her forehead, as long as she was… broken and useless, she would feel nothing else. She had once longed for an Ashikabi, once hoped that she would react to his presence and learn of a thing that humans had called love.

Such hopes had left her long ago. MBI had seen to it in their… adjustments… that she could never be winged. Ever since then, bit by bit, parts of her had just shut down and withered away. She'd forgotten how to smile, how to laugh. Pleasure and pain were distant memories to her, long since replaced by sadness and melancholy. Even now she could sense even those feelings slipping away into nothingness. Every day that had passed since she had escaped from MBI had only allowed a gnawing numbness in her heart grow unabated. She sometimes wondered what would happen were that numbness to consume her… when even sadness and despondency abandoned her. She was well past caring at this point.

"Hello! My name's the Doctor, what's yours?" asked a cheerful voice.

Someone was talking to her? There was no mistaking to whom the voice had been directed… it was surprising…

"Akitsu," she said sadly, not even bothering to look up.

"Akitsu! Lovely name! That means autumn moisture doesn't it?"

She looked at the source of the voice as best she could without moving her head.

_Why bother moving? He'll just get tired of you and leave once he's had his fun,_ she thought.

She could see he was dressed in a blue suit and a brown trench coat. A shock of wild brown hair sat atop his head. His Japanese was excellent given that he was a westerner. She had the sense that he was well travelled... perhaps too well travelled for his own good. Try as she might, Akitsu could not stir up the effort to meet his gaze.

The Doctor, noting her lack of response instantly realised there was something wrong with Akitsu. Just what was wrong was troubling him. He usually could tell fairly easily. What was it… the hair? No, it was a bit bedraggled but there was nothing unusual about that. Sitting in the park? No, parks were practically built for sitting in. The rain? He sniffed the rain and stuck his tongue out briefly to taste it. Nope. Good old regular city rain. Not quite as good as country rain but he wasn't about to complain too much about it. Was it the odd tattoo on her forehead? That certainly rung a bell. Exactly which bell however was difficult to tell… he had far too many bells inside his head that tended to ring of their own accord every now and then, yet another reason to consider getting a bigger head. Aha! He had it! At last! With a flourish he peeled off his trench coat and draped it over her shoulders.

"I'm not exactly an expert but ah… sitting out in the rain will probably give you a cold," he said with a tenderness that contrasted from his earlier seeming joviality, "do you have a family? Anywhere to go?"

"I have… nowhere to go," she said monotonously.

"What? Nowhere at all? No family? No friends?" he asked.

Akitsu turned slowly to meet his gaze. For the first time sine meeting the Doctor Akitsu made direct eye contact. She saw a man. A man far older than he looked. A man whom had stared down the horrors of the universe. A man witness to its infinite beauty. She saw fire, and ice, and cold. She saw eternity and the ephemeral. For a single moment she saw ten faces with a hundred masks and a thousand names. For a single moment she saw the Doctor.

The Doctor had also met her gaze. He saw in her… hopelessness. Melancholy. Sadness. More than that… he saw the death of happiness, the death of hope, he saw in her a despondency he hadn't seen since… since… Since he'd last looked in a mirror. He had a sneaking suspicion that the Tardis had had a good reason for bringing him here and now.

The Doctor stood up abruptly, breaking the momentary connection between them, and held his hand out towards her.

"Come on," he said tenderly, "I know a place that's warm and dry."

The Doctor had tried to swear off taking companions since Donna Noble. They had all either wound up dead… or worse. His failure on Mars had changed him… both for the worse and for the better. Humans. They made him better… no matter how much he tried, he knew he could never last long without human contact. Every one of his companions had enriched him, and he in turn had enriched them. At times though he'd felt that they'd had a larger effect on him then he did them. Perhaps it was time to repay the debt with Akitsu. The question of the mark on her forehead, though it nagged at him, could wait until later.

Akitsu looked at the Doctor's hand and hesitated, but only for a moment. This man this… Doctor had shown her kindness, the first kindness she'd seen since escaping from MBI. In this Doctor's eyes she had seen something she had never seen before in a human being.

As she took his hand she felt a slight flutter in her heart.

"Ashikabi…" she whispered softly as she felt the first faint glimmers of hope.

* * *

Hiroto Minaka smirked as he watched over the closed circuit television feed of the park.

"So, the broken bird I released has found someone to nurture her," he said magnanimously.

Takami stood nearby on a balcony with a half burned cigarette in hand and scoffed.

"Are you disappointed that you can't derive yet more cruelty from your insane plans?" she spat.

"Not at all Takami!" he shouted grandiosely.

Takami rolled her eyes. He was going into full blown speech mode again.

"No! For the Sekirei plan is only just beginning! Akitsu is a wild card in this game! Anything could happen!"

_Anything at all_, he mused.

He studied the face of the stranger that had offered his hand to Akitsu. There was no doubt about it. The gods themselves had seen fit to send a champion of their own! He'd seen him arrive out of thin air from an unassuming blue box.

Yes, the gods had truly smiled on Minaka's plan. He was sure of it! But he was a man to play out wild cards while hedging his bets at the same time and he knew the gods to be fickle. The blue box was already on its way to MBI tower, to be sequestered until the Sekirei plan was finished.

"Idiot," muttered Takami before stalking out of the directors offices.

Minaka grinned wildly as the light shone brightly off his glasses. Watching the Sekirei plan unfold with this new player was going to be… interesting.


	2. Chapter 2

Minaka knew it! He knew there was more to this stranger, this interloper in his Sekirei plan! Though nothing official had been recorded he'd known about a big stir with Geocomtex regarding this man this… Doctor. The files had had to be committed to paper. Computer records seemed to be unusually susceptible to viral attack. The records had been vague, without so much as even a picture… the only mentions were of a blue box, havoc, many deaths and Van Statten, an old rival of his, begging on the streets of Sapporo. The blue box was the key. He knew, as did some of his associates that at the key to every great disaster lay that blue box. Though the information was years old now he knew he had to do something. The database they'd recovered from the ship on Kamikura Island had yielded secrets that would help him contain this threat.

"Takami!" he shouted in his usual manic glee, "Has the Temple of the Gods arrived yet?"

"You mean that useless blue box? It's been in holding for the last five minutes," she said, "Idiot," she muttered under her breath.

Minaka heard every word but didn't care one bit. He shot to his feet and pointed.

"To the lab!" he yelled happily before tearing off in the direction he'd pointed.

"Idiot," muttered Takami before heading in the opposite direction.

"Wait! Wait for me!" he yelled backpedalling as fast as he could.

* * *

Akitsu felt the soft green grass under her bare feet. The soil underneath was slowly turning to mud under the soft patter of rain that was slowly but surely soaking everything it could. It felt nice.

"What?" exclaimed the Doctor.

She saw him pacing about a particular patch of grass, one that had been flattened in the shape of a square. Though her face betrayed not a single emotion she thought him quite mad fretting about a patch of grass.

"No, no, no, no, no! They've taken it!" he muttered.

The Doctor concentrated. He could feel the TARDIS moving away from him rapidly. It was too fast to catch on foot, too fast to catch by bus. He wasn't too concerned, for now. Nothing could possibly get inside and there was none of that electrical tang in the air that was indicative of a transport beam like what the Sontarans had tried to pull when they'd stolen his TARDIS which meant that it had simply been picked up and towed away. If that had happened it meant it was in the hands of human organisations like Geocomtex and their ilk, which of course meant that he could take his sweet time and waltz in the front door and take his TARDIS back anytime he pleased. Right now he had slightly more pressing concerns.

"Ah, sorry bout that, lost something fairly important," he said scratching his head absent mindedly, "let's get you somewhere dry! I knew a great place not too far from here! Sold the greatest Sake in all of Japan! Of course that was back in about 600 BC and it was only the greatest Sake for about three days or so until it was all gone but the place is truly magnificent!"

Akitsu simply followed the Doctor. He was mad. Completely mad. Not too unlike Minaka but somehow different. She felt his madness was a boon rather than a bane as though it were something that let him do extraordinary things and partake of extraordinary kindness.

_Kindness like looking after me_, Her heart fluttered at the thought.

"Here we are!" he proclaimed, "The… Love Motel?" he muttered, "What kind of a rubbish name is Love Motel anyway?"

Akitsu quickly revised her assessment of madness being a good thing for the Doctor as he pushed his way through a side door. The Doctor entered with a flourish, intent on making one of his usual entrances to find… no one. He looked about in consternation but managed to refrain from saying 'What'.

"Oh! Right! Japan!" he said with dawning realisation and bonked himself on the head for being too thick to realise it.

The whole process of getting a room for the night was automated. He pushed a bunch of buttons before realising probably, he glanced briefly at Akitsu and revised that to definitely, that he needed a room with a shower and had to start over again. He'd have much rather actually talked to a flesh and blood person but as they said, when in Rome… actually he'd been to Rome and even the Romans hadn't bothered to do as the Romans did. Now the thing was asking for payment.

"Ooh, money, I was never any good with money," he muttered as he fished about for his Psychic paper.

When he pressed the paper to the credit card reader a complex series of interactions took place. At first the reader was adamant that nothing at all had been inserted. Then it sensed that something had indeed been inserted, but that it wasn't in fact a credit card. The machine was just about to reject the slip of blank paper in a huff when all of a sudden it sensed a magnetic presence. Irritably, if one could say that for a machine, it interrogated the magnetic data to find complete and total gibberish. It was just about to throw its very much proverbial electronic hands in the air when credit information started flowing into it. Figuratively grumbling, the machine processed the data and took its sweet time doing so as it passed on the information down the relevant paths to the higher bureaucracies of the Japanese banking system. After waiting a few seconds, practically an eternity to most computing systems, the banking system had approved the transaction as being one of MBI's VIP accounts. Its job done the machine passed on the relevant instructions to vend the appropriate key and promptly shut down with a huff. The Doctor picked up the key to his room.

"Allons-y!" he exclaimed.

* * *

Takami rolled her eyes. Minaka was practically drooling over his 'prize', his 'gift from the gods'.

"It's a blue box you idiot!" she yelled. She rapped it hard on the side. "It's even made of wood!"

"Such a clever disguise! Only the mad or the magnificent would suspect its true nature!" proclaimed Minaka.

Takami pulled out yet another cigarette and lit up. The only thing magnificent she saw in the room was the depths of madness Minaka had sunk to. This obsession of his with that damned box had almost derailed his other obsession with the Sekirei plan. Almost. The damned fool honestly believed the complete and total nonsense he spouted… the Sekirei plan was as pointless and useless as the damned box he was fawning over. The only reason he was still in charge of MBI in any sense of the word was because anyone who dared challenge Minaka openly tended to wind up dead or worse. Only Takami had any leeway to challenge Minaka and even then, only as a kind of twisted muse to his madness. If she was going to challenge Minaka she would have to move certain individuals into the right places in the company, a plan that was already quietly in motion, and ensure that her timing was impeccable. If she moved too soon the Discipline squad would turn her to paste in spite of all the work she'd put into each and every Sekirei. Too late and she'd miss the opportunity in its entirety. She'd have to wait until the Discipline squad had their hands full and that in turn meant waiting until the Sekirei plan was further along.

"Fine. Do whatever you want. I'm going back to the lab," she snapped.

Takami stalked out of the holding area and made her way to the freight elevator. When the doors closed, she thumbed a series of floors in sequence, hesitating five seconds before pushing the final button. The panel quietly popped open to reveal a smaller hidden panel inside with six buttons. She punched the button for the fourth floor and felt the elevator lurch down as she quietly closed the main panel again. She relaxed as she entered the fourth floor of MBI tower, a little secret she'd managed to keep from Minaka. Even security didn't know about the fourth floor. Soon enough her little program in MBI's security system would activate and insert a false feed of her making her way to her labs over the security cameras, all the better to not arouse suspicion. With a relaxed familiarity she entered her real lab.

Officially, the Sekirei plan was a battle royale to decide who would 'ascend' or whatever nonsense Minaka had spouted. Unofficially it was more akin to a deathmatch. Minaka's orders had been that any Sekirei terminated on the field of battle were to be 'Disposed of'. Even more unofficially, Takami had been recording those Sekirei as successfully 'Disposed of' whilst funnelling them here to the fourth floor.

She shook her head as she read the file for one of half a dozen Sekirei recovering from their wounds in battle. At this early stage none of them had been winged, instead they had been eliminated by other Sekirei seeking to shape the battle to come. Fortunately their injuries were minor and they would recover in time. Unfortunately Minaka had filled their heads with his poison about destiny and the gods. Most of them truly believed that they had been forsaken, never to find their destined Ashikabi and disgraced in the earliest stages of the Sekirei plan as too weak. Her thoughts were interrupted by footsteps.

"The files you asked for, Takami," said Number 55.

_Her name is Saki_, she reminded herself, _I have to remember I can think of them as people on this floor._

"Thank you Saki, please tend to the others as I showed you," replied Takami.

Saki did as Takami had asked. Sadly she had been amongst the first Sekirei to be eliminated before finding an Ashikabi and the first to recover. Now she was acting as a nurse to those too injured to tend to others and Takami knew she'd soon need as many assistants and nurses as she could safely train working on this floor. She could sneak in individual Sekirei and supplies here from time to time but she truly doubted she could bring in all the specialists and doctors she'd need and keep this place a secret. The only way to get the staff she needed and keep things under Minaka's nose would be to train the Sekirei that recovered to assist the injured as they came in. In time the numbers here would grow, hopefully not so fast that the injured would go untended, and when the critical time came to decapitate Minaka as the head of MBI she knew more than a few Sekirei that would grace these wards would be more than willing to give her the physical clout she'd need to make sure it stuck. Takami smirked at the irony of using the Sekirei plan against Minaka. The fool was going to pay.

* * *

A/N

Thanks for the comments everyone! I assure you my muses feast upon them ;)

The next chapter has already been plotted out. As long as work and family don't crunch up too much of my free time it should be up within a week.


	3. Chapter 3

Getting yet more out the door, I hope you enjoy reading it as much as I do writing it.

Chapter 4 is well under way and Chapter 5 is currently in planning… though I sometimes wonder why I bother because at least half of what's panning out for Chapter 4 so far has been both completely necessary and completely unplanned… It still helps with steering the plot though so I guess it's still useful to do.

Enough blathering from me. Enjoy! If you like what you see, please leave a comment and let me know. If you don't… leave a comment and let me know!

* * *

The room was utilitarian and simple, nothing at all fancy, not that the Doctor needed somewhere particularly nice, it had a double bed, simple carpeting, with an adjoining shower and separate bathroom. Akitsu followed him in, eying the room with cold apathetic indifference.

"I'm afraid all the rooms had double beds," said the Doctor as he leapt onto the bed and lay back, "You'd think a place like this would have some rooms with single beds in it. Oh look! Sweets!"

He picked up a random coloured package sitting in a bowl by the bed and quickly revised his earlier enthusiasm for sweets before tossing the package back into the bowl where he'd found it.

"I'm forgetting something aren't I?" he asked Akitsu.

She looked on in her lab coat draped by the Doctor's trench coat without saying a word. The mark on her forehead still teased at him. He could have sworn it had some kind of importance.

"Oh! Yes!" he exclaimed, leaping off the bed, "No… yes! YES!" The doctor thumped his head as hard as he could, "Oh I am SO THICK!"

He leaped off the bed and collected the room's key card.

"I'll be right back! I'll see about finding you some clothes!"

The Doctor was out of the room before Akitsu could utter a word. She stood there dripping and cold.

_Is he coming back?_ She thought, _What am I supposed to do? What should I do?_

Other questions played out through her mind. Was she allowed to act on her own? He hadn't given her any orders. The promise to bring back clothes seemed to indicate he would return but it could just as easily have been a ploy to gently abandon her because she was useless. What little she knew of this Doctor seemed to indicate he was a complete lunatic… albeit a compassionate one. She glanced at the shower.

_It would be nice to feel warm again,_ she thought.

* * *

The Doctor had officially invaded the women's fashion section of a 24 hour department store. Fortunately as far as the Doctor's invasions went it all involved a lot of manic running and very little by way of violence.

"Dress? No. Scarf? No. Heels? Blimey!" he muttered as he went through clothing like a madman not in the least caring about the odd looks he was getting from a few of the late night customers, "If I ever, EVER, regenerate as a woman… I'll be lost! I don't know a bloody thing about…" He trailed off as he heard a familiar tune.

_Baby, baby, baby  
You are my voodoo child, my voodoo child  
Don't say maybe maybe  
It's supernatural, I'm comin' undone_

He glared upwards at the departments PA system and surreptitiously flicked his sonic screwdriver hoping for a somewhat less offensive tune. The song bore painful memories of the year that never was, ones he preferred not to relive right now.

_I have wandered, I have rambled  
I have crossed this crowded sphere,  
And I've seen a mass of problems  
That I long to disappear.  
Now, all I have's this anguished heart,  
For you have vanished too.  
Oh, my girl, my girl, my precious girl,  
Just what is this man to do?_

_Much better,_ he thought as he tried to guess Akitsu's measurements for her underclothes. He quickly gave up guessing and simply went for a good range of sizes hoping for the best. Gathering his items he darted out of ladies fashion and practically bowled into a mannequin showing off a stylish purple dress. The Doctor yelped and scurried back a few feet before getting a hold of himself.

_Not an Auton,_ he thought, _Just a mannequin. A regular old plain as plastic mannequin._

Then the mannequin _moved_.

"What?" he cried out.

The mannequin paused for a few moments before taking a different pose and pausing once more, each pose attempting to show off the dress to best effect. Fortunately only one of his hearts had had an attack.

"Oh right… Japan," he muttered and picked himself and his effects up.

* * *

Akitsu dried herself off dispassionately. The shower had been… disappointing. All she had felt had been hot water playing on her skin, face and hair. She knew how a shower was supposed to feel like, had seen others enjoying theirs before the Sekirei Plan had come to fruition… yet she felt nothing of the sort. She'd felt the water pattering against her skin… information before the senses and nothing more.

It was annoyingly inconsistent, the way she could only sometimes enjoy what her senses were telling her. The mud under her feet in the park and the rain pattering against her had felt nice. She wished that she could make sense of it all, could understand what was wrong with her. When in the shower that internal feeling of pleasure had become numb and insensate, as though something had broken inside her.

At other times however, the phenomenon would reverse. Her body would feel numb and insensate to the world while she boiled in an ocean of feelings that bore no restraint… feelings she could never hope to express because her body numbed into stubborn stillness whenever she tried to express or show those feelings. She could never find the middle ground, could never walk the path between being numb and sensuality. Some part of her was broken. She knew that. She felt that.

A barely audible sigh escaped her lips, it had been the most emotion she'd shown for the entire day, and stared into the mirror at the mark emblazoned upon her forehead. It was an eternal mark against her being, a permanent reminder that she was broken… useless… a discarded number whom could never be winged, would never find her Ashikabi, could never recite a Norito nor participate in Minaka's Sekirei Plan.

It was then that a curious thought occurred to her. If she could never be winged, if she could never recite a Norito, if she could never participate in the Sekirei plan… then did that not also mean she could never be defeated? Her mark was different from others, this she knew, and no touch from another Sekirei, even with recitation of their Norito would dissolve her mark. MBI did not consider her a part of the plan and with her power, few could hope to defeat her in single combat.

_Perhaps I am merely different, not broken…_ she mused.

She looked to the door of the room and yawned sleepily. Perhaps the Doctor would come back after all.

* * *

All his instruments insisted on the same insipid reality that Minaka knew not to be the case. For all intents and purposes, the blue box was just that, a blue box. Blue paint, wooden, and with a phone that obviously did not work. And yet it was a blue box that seemed to have been plucked from 1950's England and dumped at random in a Tokyo park in the 2020's. The CCTV footage he'd managed to retrieve showed this blue box materialising from nothing. A camera on a different angle had recorded the doors opening to reveal the Doctor… and an interior that was apparently far in excess of its external dimensions… larger on the inside than it was on the outside. Minaka was drooling with anticipation of just what MBI could do with such miraculous technology… If only he could penetrate the damned blue box and get inside.

To that end Minaka had been referring to the database he'd retrieved from the crashed ship on Kamikura Island. What parts had been translated spoke at length of the time of the gods, when the heavens themselves had been set ablaze in a celestial war that had raged throughout the universe, a war that had, in the end, consumed the gods themselves, bringing about an age of darkness that all life now dwelt within.

But the database had more than the mere folklore of the race that had cast 108 survivors off into the void. It held vitally important information. It mentioned a grand trickster, a supreme angel of death bathed in the blood of a billion galaxies that had brought about the final, bloody end of the celestial war. It spoke of his people, of their ingenuity and of their decadence. It spoke of the man who burned in the centre of time and brought the gods themselves to their knees.

"Hmmm, this Doctor…" mused Minaka to himself as he pored over his notes, "He could be a threat to the Sekirei Plan…"

He knew he was putting it mildly. For a moment Minaka wished Takami were here. She'd stalked off a while ago, leaving him to the blue box. What would she say if she were here?

_Probably call me an idiot,_ he thought, _although, she'd probably snark about how I should just arrest him… _His train of thought ended there and he leapt to his feet.

"OF COURSE!" he cried as ideas careered about in his mind at breakneck speed.

This Doctor had not merely arrived by chance. He couldn't have! He'd arrived for a purpose! A reason! For his Sekirei plan! Whether this Doctor intended to participate or disrupt the plan was immaterial to Minaka. He already had a plan to involve this Doctor in his Sekirei plan and remove him as a factor at the same time. After all, he was the Game Master, was he not? He cast about maniacally for his organiser. He had a grand announcement to make and not much time to work on it.

The Doctor trundled into the room with several shopping bags in tow and a pack of jelly babies stuffed into one of his pockets. He was about to extol the virtues of jelly babies when he noticed the subdued lights and the sleeping bump that Akitsu made in the room's only bed. He quietly set aside the spoils of his shopping trip, being careful not to wake her.

For a moment he debated whether to just climb in bed or sleep on the floor out of respect for her personal space. The floor looked every bit as uncomfortable as it sounded… and Akitsu had only taken up half the bed, leaving the other half open and inviting for him. He reasoned that so long as he remained on his side and she hers all would be well. With a sleepy yawn he clambered into bed, shut off the lights and promptly fell asleep.

* * *

Uzume sat beside Chiho's bed as she slept peacefully. The doctors said she was rallying again… if the morning weather held up she might even be allowed to take Chiho out briefly for some fresh air… they both enjoyed that immensely. If her condition could be reversed, they'd never have to keep such excursions brief and short. Uzume wanted to see the world with her Ashikabi, to climb the highest mountains, to enjoy the fresh sea air and to look upon the vast open sky with Chiho by her side.

Uzume looked again at the young woman that was her Ashikabi. The day they had met… Uzume had been sitting on a rail thinking idly. Chiho had thought she was trying to kill herself and had raced to save her, only for them both to fall… and be saved by Uzume in turn.

If it hadn't been for the way they'd met Uzume could almost believe that fate had rewarded her cruelly with Chiho. Almost. She cherished her Ashikabi… she loved Chiho with all her heart. She would do anything for her. She would wade through mud, debase herself and even fight dishonourably if it would mean that her Ashikabi could have a fighting chance against the sickness that ravaged her body.

A soft knock disturbed Uzume's thoughts. Shaking her head, she rose quietly leaving a soft kiss on Chiho's cheek and made for the door. Outside, Kakizaki adjusted his glasses and handed her a letter.

"Your next target, all the information is inside. Higa also passes on his compliments on your work so far," said Kakizaki.

"Higa can choke on his own bile," spat Uzume, giving Kakizaki a withering glare, "Will my Ashikabi get the treatment she needs?"

"All in good time," said Kakizaki before walking away.

Uzume gazed longingly at Chiho's room before she dejectedly left to do more of Higa's dirty work.


	4. Chapter 4

Sahashi Minato scoffed yet more of the Miya's well prepared, filling and exceptionally tasty breakfast as fast as he could scoff. After a night of tossing and turning and a dream about rescuing lost little girls, Minato felt that a good breakfast was just the thing he needed. Kagari was also wolfing down his food, apparently something had come up with his hosting work and they'd called him in. Musubi, Minato's Sekirei, was taking things somewhat more easily having nowhere to work except for the routine chores that Miya had graciously tasked her with. The relative peace of breakfast was soon interrupted as a nearby television switched itself on.

"Attention Ashikabi and Sekirei! I, Hiroto Minaka, your Game Master, address you!" announced Hiroto with a touch of magnificence about himself, "Today we have a unique opportunity! Within the Botanic Gardens is a young Green Girl. The first Ashikabi that gets to her may claim her as his Sekirei!"

Kagari nearly choked on his breakfast. Takami had had him ward off several opportunistic Ashikabi and their Sekirei as an attempt to protect her… now with Minaka's announcement his work had just become nigh insurmountable.

"But that is not all! MBI has identified an interloper, a dangerous criminal! Anyone who can bring this fugitive to MBI tower will be given anything that is within the power of MBI to grant! Study his face well for he walks amongst you somewhere in Tokyo!"

A grainy still photo of a westerner appeared. Though the picture was low quality one could make out most of the features, the shock of wild hair and eyes that seemed far older than his face would suggest.

The television then seemed to shut itself off… but for Sekirei, a secret message continued.

"Attention Sekirei! Heed these words and keep them from your Ashikabi! Only you can hear and see this message from your Game Master! It has come to my attention that many of you have been forcibly winged by cruel, abusive Ashikabi who care nothing for your heart or your destiny! Though such things are part of the Sekirei Plan, I offer you an opportunity. Bring the fugitive to me and MBI can reverse the bond you have, freeing you to find your true Ashikabi! I wish you all the best of luck!"

Kagari glanced at Musubi and then quickly to Miya. Not one of them showed outwardly having heard the message. He did his best to pretend that he'd heard nothing at all after the initial public transmission.

"The green girl in the park?" said Minato more to himself than to anyone else, remembering his dreams from the night before and the ghostly apparition when he and Musubi had fallen into that tree.

"The one from your dream?" said Musubi as she clung to Minato's arm.

She'd heard the message from Minaka and had no wish to be free of her bond to Minato. Even so it would be tempting to go after the 'fugitive' if only for the offer that was openly on the table… a wish that was within MBI's power to grant. She already knew what she wanted… she wanted to spend the rest of her life with Minato.

"Yes. Perhaps I can look for her after work…" said Minato.

Kagari nearly choked again. Though he led a double life of sorts as Homura, protector of unwinged Sekirei there was no way he'd let anyone forcibly wing number 108 without a fight. Minato had dreamt of her… which meant he was reacting to her in the fashion that destined Ashikabi did. He seemed nice enough but in Kagari's mind Kusano was still too young by far.

"I'll look for her Minato! I won't let you down!" shouted Musubi enthusiastically.

"Didn't the message say that Ashikabi had to find her?" said Minato.

"Don't you have chores that need doing?" interjected Miya in a sweet hannya way.

"Ah… um… right… yes… chores…" said Musubi, afraid for her life.

Miya had a way of instilling mortal fear into just about everyone she met that displeased her. Whenever she spoke like that it was as though all the demons of hell itself were three feet behind her just waiting for an excuse. It was a feeling that could only be dispersed by saying exactly the right thing to Miya as quickly and as honestly as possible. Nobody in Izumo House wanted to see the results of crossing Miya. Nobody.

"Well, I need to go, I'm late for work already," said Kagari as naturally as he could.

"Will you be coming home for dinner Kagari?" asked Miya.

"No, I'm having another late night," said Kagari… which was true enough.

As soon as he was out of sight, Kagari leapt into action and disguised himself quickly as his alter ego, Homura. He could already see several Ashikabi and their Sekirei closing in on the park. With flames in hand, Kagari knew he had his work cut out for him.

* * *

The Doctor woke up bright and early. He hadn't been all that tired and wasn't really that much of a fan of sleeping much at all really, preferring to wring as much value out of his days as he could. He was about to toss off the covers and have a quick shower when he realised quite belatedly that he had apparently grown a second set of arms.

"Four arms?" he muttered, "Four arms! Fantastic!"

He could already imagine what he could do with four arms! He could pilot the TARDIS twice as well! He could wave to twice as many people as he could before! He could get dressed and attend to his hair at the same time! He could even-

His train of thought took an abrupt turn when he realised that his new second set of arms were somewhat daintier than his usual pair. Furthermore, they seemed to stretch back a fair bit further than he himself did. His eyes roved back, following where the arms went until he craned his neck to see that Akitsu had snuggled up close in the night and had him locked in an embrace.

"Ah, well, that explains that… pity about the arms though," he mused somewhat sadly… he'd really been looking forward to have a second pair of arms.

Akitsu, unconsciously sensing that the Doctor was awake tightened her embrace, practically squeezing into him.

"Oh! Well! Um! Oh dear!" stammered the Doctor apprehensively as he realised that Akitsu seemed to very much favour sleeping in the buff, "Um, Akitsu… Akitsu could you wake up?"

Akitsu's sleepy grey-brown eyes slowly fluttered open and her face settled from a relaxed sleepy expression to the cold drowsy one she normally wore while awake.

"Ashikabi?" she uttered softly.

The Tardis translation for 'Ashikabi' had several bents in it. It worked out to: Friend, Companion, Lifemate, Husband/Wife, Genebinder and… disturbingly… Master. Overall, a very broad term… the Doctor preferred to think of the word as closer to Friend / Companion than all of the other deeper connotations, though even Companion was pushing it all told. The sooner he found a safe place for her and retrieved his TARDIS the better it would be for the both of them. The last thing he needed was someone close to him to get hurt. Again.

"Call me the Doctor," he said warmly, before glancing up at her forehead and locking his gaze on her Sekirei mark.

"Doctor," she said.

"Excuse me, can I just…" he said as he brushed her hair aside.

For the first time the Doctor actually, properly looked at the mark instead of just noting it as interesting and leaving it at that. The more he tried to look at it the more something seemed to nag at him to not look at it.

"Interesting…" he said, reaching for his glasses and sonic screwdriver.

After a moment to sonic the glasses he slipped them on and took another good look at her mark.

"Aha! Oh yes! Quite brilliant!" he exclaimed.

"Doctor?" asked Akitsu.

"Your uh… tattoo," he said, "Very interesting! Whoever did this to you went out of their way to build in a perception filter! Bit like how the TARDIS disguises itself… it's sort of like that Somebody Elses Problem field from the Hitchhikers guide to the galaxy and I should know since I gave Douglas Adams the idea…"

Akitsu shot the Doctor a perplexed look.

"Perception filter?" she imitated imperfectly by way of question.

"Oh, uh… it kind of makes you… not really notable unless you do something to stand out. That's why all those people were passing you by without a second glance. It looks like it's been set so that only a few special types of people can see it… the only reason I can see it at all is… well, that's not important… it can't seem to figure out what I am so it sort of swings back and forth between wanting to be seen and not wanting to be seen and whoever did this was absolutely BRILLIANT... I mean, who manages to work a perception filter into a tattoo of all things? That's like making fire from ice… doable but why all the bother? Who did this to you by the way?"

"MBI," replied Akitsu.

"MBI?" asked the Doctor.

"MBI," confirmed Akitsu

"A cult? A company? An organisation? A government agency? A club?" probed the Doctor.

"Company," replied Akitsu.

"Ah, well…" said the Doctor, "Why don't we pay them a little visit after breakfast eh?"

* * *

Minaka reclined in his chair comfortably feeling quite pleased with himself waiting for his tea to cool. His message had gone off without a hitch. He'd been most pleased with the Subwave network technology appropriated from the Mr. Copper foundation… quite possibly one of the most useful pieces of software he'd managed to acquire being able to intelligently find and contact whoever he wanted to contact, doing so discreetly and untraceably. Even Matsu, thorn in his side though she could be at times, would be hard pressed to track a subwave signal.

The Doctor was still very much at large but he had confidence he'd be in his custody soon enough. In truth this manhunt of his was as much a test as it was a genuine attempt to reign in a potential threat. He'd set an unofficial time limit on his offer to the Sekirei of three days. If the lesser Sekirei he'd released could bring him in inside that time limit, then the Doctor was probably not nearly as problematic as he'd suspected and he could stay the course after incarcerating him safely away where he could affect little of consequence. If however he could evade capture… well, there were reasons he kept the Disciplinary Squad in his pocket. Minaka then remembered to check his watch and counted off the seconds… 3… 2… 1…

"YOU IDIOT!" roared Takami as she burst into his office.

_Right on time_, he thought with a smile on his face.

"Did I leave the kettle on again? I really should get my secretary to make me my tea," he said, feigning ignorance.

"You know what I'm talking about!" snapped Takami, "You throw Kusano to the wolves before we've even finished with her adjustments and then you make promises you know we can't keep!"

Minaka smiled. He loved pushing Takami's buttons… it was often so difficult to get a reaction out of her that fell outside of her normal patterns. Seeing her like this reminded him of old times.

"The Sekirei Plan marches on whether we are ready for it or not," replied Minaka to her first point, "And our research in reversing the Sekirei bond with their Ashikabi proceeds apace… sooner or later we'd have to go with live test subjects. Cell cultures will only take us so far!"

"None of those cell cultures have survived Minaka. What do you think will happen when we expose a Sekirei to that process after she's been bonded with her Ashikabi, willing or not?"

"If it is the will of the Gods that the Sekirei do not survive the process then so be it," said Minaka as he reached for his tea.

Takami slapped the tea out of his hands in indignation. The cup sailed out of his hands and shattered on the ground with a crash, spilling hot tea onto the floor. Minaka irritably stood up and leaned over his desk, coming within inches of Takami's face.

"It is your _job_ to make the process work," he said through gritted teeth, "Or perhaps you enjoy seeing Sekirei being abused by their Ashikabi?"

"The process is not ready," growled Takami in return, "I'm not sure if it will ever _be_ ready. You cannot go and make promises to those people that neither you nor I can keep. False hope is worse than none at all in the end."

"Therein lies your problem, Takami. You think of them as people… not as the instruments of the Gods!" said Minaka as he adopted a grandiose pose, "Does a hammer question a carpenter? Does a pen challenge a writer? Does your computer resist its purpose? When the Sekirei have fulfilled their purpose the time of the gods shall begin anew! You and I will have been instrumental in its rebirth!"

"And Takehito?" countered Takami.

The wind practically flew out of Minaka's sails. The grandiose pose he'd struck withered into slumped shoulders. She'd struck an old wound squarely, an old wound that both of them shared.

"Get out," he said flatly.

Takami turned and made for the door, her point made. She paused for a moment at the threshold and looked back to Minaka.

"If _she_ ever finds out," said Takami, "She'll have your head. You know that."

"And yours for keeping the truth from her, Takami," said Minaka, his voice dead.

She nodded. Takami had known the price for her silence on the matter and would pay it when the time came. Head hung low, she left Minaka's office.

Minaka glanced at the shattered teacup and shook his head. He sat back at his desk and pulled a bottle of clear fluid and a small glass. He felt the need for a drink and tea was not going to cut it. He poured out a shot and sculled it before pouring out another shot. He held the glass out in front of him, letting it refract the view of Tokyo through its clear on clear depths.

"Takehito," he said softly.

* * *

A/N

Thanks for all the commentary and support so far everyone! Chapter 5 is shaping up _very_ well and should be up fairly soon if I continue to luck out on free time, inspiration and creative drive.


	5. Chapter 5

A/N

I had a little extra time this week so this chapter is a might longer than the previous entries have been so far. The next chapter is shaping up to be about as long too if the planning stages pan out. Enjoy!

* * *

Akitsu fixed the Doctor with a cold and curious stare as he sipped his tea. After they'd showered one after the other Akitsu had rifled through the clothing the Doctor had thoughtfully provided her, settling on a Kimono with a black ribbon about her waist and a parting down the center. After getting dressed the Doctor had marched right up to the nearest café he could find and had flashed his magical psychic paper in their faces, concocting a story about being a food critic for the British Crown. Within moments they had been given a complimentary free breakfast with their finest tea… it was something Akitsu would have dismissed as impossible not 24 hours ago.

Now however, even just being with the Doctor for such a short time, she was convinced that nothing could stop this man from getting what he wanted. It was as if the universe itself seemed to stand aside to allow him to pass and yet… he acted as though he wanted none of it. It was as though he was merely passing through and apart from the bare necessities, such as breakfast, he was unwilling to be overly burdensome on others except where it came to what he perceived as injustice.

How could she tell the Doctor about the Sekirei plan? How would he react to it? Sekirei themselves usually gave the barebones explanation after being winged before Minaka contacted the Ashikabi directly. Akitsu however couldn't be winged. She knew this, felt it in her bones, whenever she stopped and 'listened' for the beat of her Ashikabi's heart she heard… nothing. Nothing at all. No matter how far she stretched her senses, no matter how hard she tried, she could not sense her Ashikabi. Perhaps he, or she, had died long before the Sekirei plan had come into motion. Perhaps her Ashikabi had yet to be born… if she could but choose whom to make her Ashikabi instead of leaving it in the capricious hands of destiny she would have leapt across the table and kissed the Doctor to seal the pact, forever. She may not be reacting to him in the way that Sekirei naturally did to their Ashikabi but that was the norm for Akitsu… a norm she longed to break.

"Just what I needed!" exclaimed the Doctor, breaking Akitsu's train of thought, "Lovely stuff tea! Reverses enzyme decay! Reduces free radicals! Stops brains from melting!"

Akitsu glanced at her own half finished cup of tea but didn't find herself reaching quite the same levels of excitement for it. It was warm. The taste was inoffensive but neither was it particularly engaging. It was just a drink, served hot. Perhaps she couldn't enjoy it because of that numbness. Did it affect taste and the enjoyment of food too? Such things had always been this way as far back as Akitsu could remember… she'd only come to question what she felt when she'd seen others delighting in feelings and sensations she never once shared after she had escaped from MBI tower. Before that she'd always been isolated, even from other Sekirei, she'd come to appreciate silence and had been laconic from the moment she'd learned to speak… a stark contrast from the Doctor's nigh sesquipedalian loquaciousness.

The Doctor had been making a show of scribbling down notes for his 'critical review' of the establishments 'fine cuisine', the better to keep up the appearance of a food critic… at least until they walked out. Akitsu sipped her tea once again, trying to extract even the barest shred of enjoyment out of it… to no avail. With a silent sigh she placed the teacup on the table and focused on a nearby television. There was a twist of static and the image of a weather reporter declaring sunny skies ahead for the next few days was replaced by Hiroto Minaka.

"Attention Ashikabi and Sekirei! I, Hiroto Minaka, your Game Master, address you!" announced Hiroto with a touch of magnificence about himself, "Today we have a unique opportunity! Within the Botanic Gardens is a young Green Girl. The first Ashikabi that gets to her may claim her as his Sekirei!"

Akitsu saw that the Doctor hadn't seen the transmission. It wasn't tuned for him. Only Ashikabi and Sekirei could see it.

_The Green Girl?_ Thought Akitsu, _Number 108, Kusano?_

Akitsu had grown up isolated from other Sekirei. The others had actively avoided her… whether it was out of some instinctual knowledge that she was broken and irrelevant or a deliberate and malicious campaign of exclusion Akitsu neither knew nor cared. It was inevitable as the Ice Sekirei that she would, sometimes in jest, sometimes in all seriousness, be called the Ice Queen. She had, after a time, come to revel in her solitude and isolation, using it to observe the other Sekirei and their interactions with humans as though she were documenting their behaviour for some outside party. She'd memorised many details involving their powers and their behaviour… and she knew a lot more about the Sekirei plan than most… though the Discipline Squad undoubtedly had the full picture. Kusano was young… still very much an innocent child. She sifted through what she knew to be normal human behaviour. How would a human react to a young child being offered up as a trophy to whomsoever got to her first? Shock? Outrage? Indignation? Concern? Each one of them seemed to be the right answer. Logically she knew she should be feeling those things. Her mind held a detached concern for her fellow Sekirei… but she herself felt nothing but cold apathy. She knew that was wrong. She could think of her concerns but she could not feel them, there was no anxiety, no worry, nothing.

"But that is not all! MBI has identified an interloper, a dangerous criminal! Anyone who can bring this fugitive to MBI tower will be given anything that is within the power of MBI to grant! Study his face well for he walks amongst you somewhere in Tokyo!"

Akitsu's eyebrows rose with surprise. Once again her feelings, or lack thereof, were as inconsistent as night and day. She felt no concern at all for a child thrown to the wolves but as soon as those first pictures started appearing on the screen…

"Doctor," she said, tugging at his shirtsleeve and pointing at the TV.

"What? Oh yes, I'm sure Toyota's are quite nice," he said.

It was useless. He couldn't see the message. She was about to give up when Minaka continued.

"Attention Sekirei! Heed these words and keep them from your Ashikabi! Only you can hear and see this message from your Game Master! It has come to my attention that many of you have been forcibly winged by cruel, abusive Ashikabi who care nothing for your heart or your destiny! Though such things are part of the Sekirei Plan, I offer you an opportunity. Bring the fugitive to me and MBI can reverse the bond you have, freeing you to find your true Ashikabi! I wish you all the best of luck!"

Akitsu instantly realised just how much danger this Doctor was in. She knew enough about humans to know that more than a few would see Sekirei as their property to do with as they pleased. She knew enough about Sekirei to know that though they might hate every moment of it they would accept their fate… until destiny offered a way out, and Minaka had just played on that. Many Sekirei would be tempted by this offer, more than she could fight off if it came down to a fight. They needed to run, needed to hide. It was not fear that drove her, merely a cognisant breakdown of the situation at hand. They couldn't fight all those Sekirei at once. The remaining options were run and hide.

"Doctor," she said more insistently this time.

"What is it?" he asked, noticing the trace of concern in her at last.

"Trouble," she said.

The Doctor glanced about but saw nothing untoward in the café.

"What kind of trouble?" he asked.

"Big," she informed.

"How big?"

"Very,"

"Woman of few words aren't you," he commented.

Akitsu wished she could be more specific, that she could tell him just how deep the trouble went but communication was not her strong point. Her laconic nature had been bred of a life of solitude and a disdain for others, it was not something she could easily break out of in a pinch. She knew the Doctor could see the flickers of concern on her face. It had been the most emotion she'd displayed in front of him since he had found her, dejected, alone and soaking in the park the night before.

"Come closer," he beckoned from across the table.

Akitsu obeyed, leaning in closer and closer to the Doctor. Was this it? Was he going to try and wing her? Now?

_What will that feel like?_ She wondered.

A thought struck her. What would happen to her when he found out he couldn't wing her? Would she be discarded? Thrown out again? Fear welled up in her, one of the few things she could feel without the damnable inhibitions that applied to so much else. She was absolutely, deathly afraid of being thrown out like common refuse. Again. The Doctor leaned forward. The barest of trembles shook her body. She closed her eyes and prepared for the worst.

He reached out to her, placing his hands on either side of her face and closed his eyes.

"This won't hurt a bit," he reassured her, "Just relax,"

The Doctor did not like making a habit of this, entering another persons mind to walk amongst their memories in much the same manner he travelled through time and space. Within moments of making the connection the Doctor knew that Akitsu wasn't human. More then that, her mind was unlike any that he'd visited in the past. In most cases it was like a dream of flying. You chose where you wanted to be and there you went. Her mind though… it was like swimming in a frigid sea of molasses. Everything in her seemed to drag him, hold him down, resist his perception.

"Don't resist," he said, "Open up… if there's anything you don't want me to see just imagine a closed door. I won't look. I promise."

The sea disappeared, replaced by… void. Nothing. Wherever he looked he saw an endless abyss of nothing that seemed to stretch on forever and ever and ever, a void so thick it was as though it were tangible. It made no sense. There should have been childhood memories, life on Earth, the million and one things that people accumulated in their lifetime that would pop in and out at random. All that he could make of the void was that it was some kind of cipher, some barrier that held something back.

"Doctor," whispered Akitsu.

Images streamed forth in front of the Doctor. Akitsu was doing her part, not merely letting him in but pushing to be heard inside her own mind. He saw a man wearing glasses and a haircut that made even his look tame wearing a labcoat that seemed more like a cape. He saw images of people… people that weren't human but strongly resembled them with powers no human in history had ever possessed. He saw a great battle, he saw Tokyo in ruins as two fighters clashed against one another unleashing disproportionately improbable forces upon one another in a quest for victory. He saw himself chased and hounded by these people that were not human and through it all he felt a small spark… a strand of fear for his safety from Akitsu. Carefully the Doctor disengaged the link, realising only at the end that just as he'd seen only the barest of glimpses into Akitsu… Akitsu had seen only the barest of glimpses of him.

"Doctor," she said as tears welled up in her eyes.

The things she had seen! She had tried to tell him… felt him trying to claw through the numbness and the cold and the isolation, trying to see what she had seen, know what she knew… she had beaten at her own barriers, fought against the walls until she had felt the slightest touch of the Doctor… and in touch him he had also touched her.

Images, feelings, names, people, places… more than the Earth had to offer. She had seen red grass and a burnished orange sky! A great crystal citadel that stretched on forever! She'd seen war and death! She'd seen life and rebirth! Massive nebulae and galaxies… she'd seen the Earth's first dawn and its final sunset ten billion years apart from one another… just a tiny glimpse of this wonderful, amazing, scary, beautiful Doctor. She felt wonder. She felt fear. She felt gratitude. She _felt_. For a few glorious moments she felt something beyond numb and cold and fear. For the briefest of moments she could feel things uninhibited… before the walls began to close once more returning her to darkness and cold once more. She cried. She cried because she could feel nothing anymore, not happiness, not gladness, not grief nor sorrow. Her tears were a physiological response to her turmoil and nothing more but she knew… she knew what it was to feel and like the first taste of honey she had found herself wanting more of it.

"I'm sorry," said the Doctor as he sat himself beside her, "I'm so, so sorry,"

He drew her into an encompassing embrace despite the odd looks from the other patrons and employees in the café. He'd sensed some of what had concerned Akitsu… and a whole lot more as well. Despite her fears, despite her concerns the Doctor knew that he had to comfort her first. She might not have been human but that did not rob her of the right to human compassion. No mind had been like hers in all of time and space. Walled off, isolated, and closed in from even itself. It was monstrous, it was unnatural, and whoever had done this to her… he swore. He swore then and there while offering comfort and sympathy to Akitsu… he would get to the bottom of this. He would find out who had done this to her… when they had done it to her… why it was done… and he would make them pay.

* * *

Uzume hated working for Higa. If not for her the sake of her Ashikabi she would have taken great pleasure in returning all the misery and sorrow he was putting her through by helping Chiho just enough to keep her alive instead of giving her the best of care… despite the rules regarding Sekirei and Ashikabi in Minaka's game. That being said, once the job was underway, she was brutally professional in her execution. There was nothing right about what she was doing but at least she could say that she did it well.

Her target, No. 77, Shourai, had fled at the sight of her. That meant she was smarter than most of her victims. Unwinged Sekirei were like fodder for her. Winged ones were tougher, not that she couldn't handle them regardless, but Higa had a penchant for preying on the weak that turned her stomach. The least he could do was send her up against worthy prey.

They leaped from building to building with the boundless, endless endurance and power that were part and parcel of being Sekirei, Shourai always managing to stay one step ahead of Uzume. She knew why of course, Shourai had a special talent for seeing a few moments in the future at all times. She'd run because she'd seen herself run in her future sight, because every time she stood her ground and fought she only ever saw herself dying. It made chasing her problematic. It would make fighting her just as problematic… but not impossible. Sekirei had their limits… even clairvoyant Sekirei. As long as she could overwhelm her opponent using her standard modus operandi Shourai would go down just as easily as her prior victims.

Shourai landed hard in an open courtyard. She stood, tall and proud as though daring Uzume to attack her now before she spoke.

"Veiled Sekirei!" she shouted, pointing an accusing finger at her, "I have seen the future!"

Uzume landed a safe distance away. Close enough to lash out with her veils, far enough to make any sort of counter attack ineffective. Though Shourai could see the future and was a formidable melee fighter because of it, the real damage at this distance would come from twin razor sharp discuses she favoured as weapons in mid range combat.

"And I have seen yours, Oracle," countered Uzume, "It ends with you choking on my veils,"

Shourai laughed, "I have seen the face of my Ashikabi! He wings me! Right here! In the gentle summer rain! I cannot be defeated by you until that time has come to pass! My visions never lie!"

Uzume had paid her sufficient courtesy. By way of response she lashed out with her veils. Shourai dodged and flung a disc, shredding fabric. More veils unfurled, striking out from multiple directions. With her remaining disc Shourai twisted, twirled and slashed her way to freedom. Instinct, training and a keen sense for survival forced Uzume to the ground as Shourai's first disc swung back to return to its master. A moment too late and it would have struck her in the back.

Taking the initiative, Shourai thundered toward her, catching her disc in mid flight intent on filleting Uzume. Though Shourai was unwinged and couldn't win by touching Uzume's crest and reciting her norito, she could still technically win the fight as long as she beat her to within an inch of her life.

A disk came scything down in a smooth rapid arc. Uzume scrambled to her right just in time. The disc hit the ground with enough force to penetrate the concrete and disturb the long buried soil underneath, releasing a spout of dirt and dust. Using the poor visibility to her advantage Uzume lashed out with her veils again seizing her victim's limbs easily. Her ability to see the future was all too literal, the dust and dirt in the air had obscured them both, preventing Shourai's limited clairvoyance of being any use until it cleared. She had unwittingly turned her own strength into a weakness, one that Uzume had not hesitated to exploit.

"No! NO!" shouted Shourai as she struggled, "This can't happen! This wasn't supposed to happen!"

Uzume held her in place with her veils. Had this been a fair fight, an honourable duel between winged Sekirei as part of the Sekirei plan, she would have touched the crest on the back of Shourai's neck, recited her Norito and be done with it. This was, however, not a fair fight and not an honourable duel. Only idiots fought fair in the Sekirei plan and Shourai had yet to be winged. With a grim look Uzume knew what she had to do. She took no pleasure in this. She delivered a hard kick to Shourai's lower spine, tuning out of the bound Sekirei's scream of pain. She punched her upper spine with enough force to shatter bricks, eliciting another scream from her victim. If Shourai were smart she'd stop struggling now and play dead.

"No… my Ashikabi…" she breathed as she tried, however ineptly to struggle despite the shattered vertebrae and the pain.

Uzume shook her head. Shourai's persistence in struggling was forcing her to be unnecessarily brutal. She lifted Shourai up high with her veils… and then brought her slamming back down into the ground. She had to do it repeatedly. Sekirei were resilient by nature, able to take more punishment than regular human beings. It was on the third slam that Shourai finally stopped struggling.

Her job was done. She had neither need nor right to dwell in this place. MBI would soon be along to pick her up… she'd survive as long as she was hospitalised soon. She felt a pang of guilt… Shourai had had a vision of meeting her Ashikabi in the summer rain, of being winged in this very place… now she never would. She was out of the Sekirei plan, eliminated before she'd had a chance to rightfully begin because of Uzume… because of Higa. With a sigh she leapt up and away, leaving Shourai bleeding on the pavement.

* * *

"Stupid bitch!" yelled Junichi Tanigawa as he slapped Yashima, "How dare you run away from that fiery Sekirei!"

"I-I- I'm sorry master!" she stammered, cringing instinctively to present a smaller target.

"Shut up! Because of you others will now beat us to that green girl! Do you know how much you've cost me!"

"We… could hunt for the fugitive?" offered Yashima, desperately trying to evade another beating.

"The fugitive? Hmm… let me think…" said Tanigawa as he leered at her.

How could fate have been so cruel to her? Had she offended some capricious deity? Were the spirits of this world arrayed against her? How had she ended up with such a cruel Ashikabi? And then she remembered. She'd been walking the streets searching for her one true Ashikabi when Tanigawa had forced himself on her; starting with a kiss… the surprise winging had delayed what had ensued afterward. She didn't like to dwell on that or any of the multiple repeats of that performance. She was his Sekirei. He had winged her. She was his forever. Unless… Minaka's offer. She hadn't told her Ashikabi. It felt good to have a secret from him, however small… to have one thing she owned all to herself, unlike her life… unlike her body. She'd have shuddered at the small reminder of what was being done to her repeatedly but suppressed it. Shuddering only brought about fresh spurts of abuse. She'd learned to detach herself, disconnect from the experience and pretend it was happening to someone else, like a bad dream or a worse story. Minaka's offer was a way out, an escape, a reprieve from this torment.

"We'd have a lot of ground to cover," he mused, thinking pragmatically, "and if MBI wants Ashikabi and Sekirei to bring him in he may be dangerous,"

Yashima was glad when her Ashikabi was like this, thinking and planning instead of brooding and beating her. With any luck her quick thinking would earn her a reprieve from her more… unsavoury uses.

"Perhaps we should split up?" she offered, "That way we can find the fugitive much faster! I can cover more ground by myself… if I find him I can call you on your phone!"

Tanigawa glared at her.

_Shit! No!_ She thought, cringing under his glare.

While Tanigawa generally appreciated a degree of independent thought and initiative in her, too much would earn his ire just as easily as stupidity and mistakes often did. He wanted her smart, but not too smart… independent, yet not too independent… submissive but not too submissive. If it looked as though for a moment she might actually be a living, breathing person with genuine feelings he beat her ruthlessly. As a Sekirei her natural resilience made it difficult for a human to truly injure her. But that didn't stop her from feeling pain, both the physical and emotional kind. She still dreaded the lead pipe he kept for his 'Discipline' sessions. She'd been completely unprepared for scum like him, absolutely naïve and innocent until it was too late. She'd never believed that there could be such cruelty in the world… such farcical justice.

"You call me the second you spot him," growled Tanigawa, "If we catch him I might even give you a real meal tonight instead of dog food. Now go!"

"Ye-Yes Master!" she said before leaping away at top speed.

She would search for the fugitive… after she'd tended to her needs. She fished around and found a few hundred yen in her pockets, stolen in the quiet nights a little at a time whenever Tanigawa was sleeping. Just enough not to be noticed in case such an occasion were to happen when her Ashikabi, her 'Master' didn't have his eyes on her so she could buy a few things for herself. A little food… perhaps a brush for her hair. She'd bought a doll not too long ago and had called it Kyoukai. She talked to her at night, whispering the things that Tanigawa did to her, the things she hated to think of. Sometimes Kyoukai talked to her, kind words, reassurance. She was certain that dolls didn't talk to people, let alone Sekirei, was sure that it was a sign that what her Ashikabi was doing to her was having a drastic effect on her mind. But she didn't care. Kyoukai for her was like a single breath of air to a drowning man. She didn't care where it came from, just that it was there. Minaka's offer… was like a lifeline. All she had to do was apprehend the fugitive and deliver him straight to MBI tower. She'd never have to see her Ashikabi again. She could just curl up into a ball and cry the pain and hurt and misery away. Yes. That's what she'd do. Once she was free she'd cry until the hurting stopped... if the hurting stopped.

* * *

Kagari was sweating profusely. The combination of sun, dark clothing, flames and physical exertion was taking its toll… he'd kill for just five minutes in a Furo. Or a cold shower at least. More than anything, he was exhausted. As a Sekirei he had almost boundless energy and endurance… keyword being almost. MBI had closed off and evacuated two miles surrounding the park where Kusano was hiding in the undergrowth. That worked out, if Kagari had done his math right, to over twelve square miles of ground to cover and defend against multiple interlopers coming from multiple directions. Suffice to say he'd burned through his reserves of energy and was now functioning on pure adrenaline to keep him going.

At this point he knew he'd already failed to keep several people out of the park. Hikari and Hibiki had managed to slip in, along with their Ashikabi and Minato. Yomi had also snuck in while he'd been fighting several Sekirei from the Ashikabi of the West. He'd have gone after her on general principle alone had he not noticed Hayato Mikogami making a break for the park, no doubt to assist Yomi in case she failed in retrieving Kusano.

Kagari landed in a street not too far from the park. He had only a few minutes to catch his breath. Mikogami was a child and an utter fool to boot. His Sekirei, however, were an entirely different story. Yomi was an idiot, plain and simple… but Mutsu… Mutsu had been a part of the first discipline squad. He had participated in the battle to defend Kamikura Island and that alone meant he was a powerful and formidable opponent. The fact that he'd been winged made him that much more dangerous.

Kagari had already failed to keep people clear of the park, the best that Kusano could hope for was that she would be claimed by Minato first and spirited away before other Sekirei and Ashikabi could filter into the park and complicate matters. In the end it was unnecessary to defeat Mutsu, the only thing Kagari had to do was delay him just long enough to make pressing on pointless.

A car rolled to a stop not too far ahead. It didn't take an Einstein to figure out that it belonged to Mikogami and like clockwork Mutsu stepped out while his Ashikabi reclined lazily in the car seat hoping for a good performance from his Sekirei. Kagari had only just started to cool off… he would have killed for a few extra moments of reprieve. Mutsu approached, carefully sizing up Kagari.

"Ah, Homura," he said, referring to Kagari by way of his alias, "You've been quite busy. Still consider yourself the protector of unwinged Sekirei?"

"Of course, someone must watch over those whom cannot fight for themselves," said Kagari. The longer he kept Mutsu talking the more time he could delay him.

"And you yourself are unwinged as well. My Ashikabi has expressed a desire for words with you… though I suspect you will not go to him willingly."

"You suspect correctly. I assume you're here for the green girl also?"

Mutsu nodded, "Yes, my Ashikabi has expressed disappointment after failing to locate the Ice Sekirei last night,"

"The Ice Sekirei? Akitsu?" asked Kagari.

Mutsu confirmed this with a curt nod.

"What is a discarded number doing in the outside world? Is this a joke by Minaka?"

Mutsu glanced over his shoulder and noted the bored look on his Ashikabi's face. He'd always been a quick judge of situation and character and could see that Homura was playing for time. With a smile on his face he withdrew his sword.

"I'm sorry, that's all the time we have to chat. Come with me, stand aside or fight. Your choice."

Red flames burst into existence in both of Kagari's hands. Focusing his power he convinced the fire to burn at a hotter and brighter yellow.

"Did you really need to make the offer in the first place?" said Kagari with a sly grin hidden by his mask.

Mutsu slammed the hilt of his sword on the ground causing the road to split in a straight line headed directly for Kagari. He leapt out of the way as the crack reached him… where he had once stood, the road exploded, sending bitumen flying in every direction. Kagari returned fire… literally. Bolts of flame flew from his hands, forcing his opponent to dodge. Utilising his power, Kagari built a wall of flame horizontally across the road until it was wall to wall. He raised his hands as though he was delivering an infernal sermon to an audience of Hannya and the flames leapt higher forming an impenetrable wall of flame. Holding his hands on high, he then pushed an invisible wall… sending the firewall screaming down the street burning everything in its wake.

Kagari looked at the devastation he had wrought exhaustedly. Car tires burned. Windows were cracked. Even the road had melted a little… yet there was no sign of Mutsu or his Ashikabi's vehicle. Had they wisely retreated? The sound of a heavy landing behind him convinced him otherwise and he groaned inwardly.

The sweeping kick to his legs was unexpected. It sent Kagari back first into the road and winded him. Mutsu had clearly changed his fighting style since Kamikura, though that was to be expected. Incapacitated, he felt Mutsu grab him by the legs and drag him towards Mikogami's car.

_Work damn you!_ Thought Kagari furiously as he gasped for air helplessly, _Work! I'd rather die than be winged by that idiot Mikogami!_

Mutsu paused mid-step for a moment, looked at Kagari and then towards the Park. He was distracted. At that moment Kagari's lungs decided to get back to work with a gasp. Mutsu's eyes snapped back to his quarry but it was too late. Kagari spun as hard and as fast as he could manage in Mutsu's tight grip, sending him flying into a nearby car hard enough to dent the panels and shatter the glass. Kagari leapt up and away to the relative safety of a nearby building.

Leaning back against the damaged car, Mutsu glanced to the park, to Kagari, and then to his Ashikabi. The sound of a horn blaring somehow managed to wend its way through the smoke and fire.

"It would seem that our fight has been postponed, Homura, I look forward to a rematch,"

Kagari smiled under his mask. That meant that Kusano had been claimed. By whom he had no idea but judging from the look on Mutsu's face… it seemed that Mikogami had lost, rather than gained a Sekirei today.

"When the time comes," said Kagari, "Bring it."

* * *

The Doctor had lost track of how long he'd been sitting with Akitsu, holding her until she'd finished crying. That was a first, a Time Lord losing track of time. Well, not really. More like an umpteenth. He'd honestly lost count but the moments had always been few and far between… though nine long centuries of life had offered ample opportunities.

Crying. It was good for the soul in so many ways. It let out some of the hurt that got pent up inside, eased off pressure, allowed misery, depression and frustration to evaporate out and away… therapeutic in every sense of the word. Something the Doctor dared not do. If the Doctor were to truly let go and shed tears he was afraid that they would never stop, that lifetimes of grief and woe, pain and hurt would flow and never cease to do so… it was another aspect of human nature that he privately envied, something that made humanity so wonderful.

It took her a little time but she recovered from her mental contact with grace. After she'd managed to dry off her tears and compose herself she was back to her stoic, ice cold self. Even if she was closed off it was just another aspect of human nature that the Doctor admired, resilience, the will to bounce back after so thoroughly breaking down. He knew of course that the tears were not just tears of pain and sorrow. He knew that they were also tears of joy and wonder of the things she had seen from his mind during the link. He'd learned, long ago, from the Madame de Pompadour that the mental link went both ways… a feat he was still mightily impressed by.

Still, the Doctor had to worry about his erstwhile… companion. During the link he'd encountered a void… a barrier… a wall of some sort that was holding something back. Whatever it was holding back had kept him out… someone had erected a barrier within Akitsu's mind. That barrier was keeping her feelings numb stopping her from being a true person, stopping her from enjoying the feeling of wind on her face or grass beneath her feet, feelings that no one, no human, should ever have been denied.

Of course, from his brief glimpse into Akitsu's mind, he knew for a fact that she was not human. Close but not quite there. In truth he honestly should have noticed from the smell… not quite as pungent as the smell of humanity but the Doctor and his nose weren't exactly on speaking terms on account of too many damp dark places where horrific smells tended to dwell. No, while she was very close to the mark Akitsu wasn't human. Which meant she was an alien. Definitely. No doubt about that. Of course, there were at least several thousand alien species that closely resembled humanity that would fit the bill and probably a good deal more that had evolved to look Time Lord in all of time and space. The real question of course was what an alien was doing on Earth in this time period. She certainly didn't seem to have some kind of nefarious agenda to take over the planet. The people that tattooed that perception filter into her forehead perhaps? MBI? That would be a good start…

Enough time had passed. It was time to act.

"Akitsu," said the Doctor, "Do you know where MBI are based?"

Akitsu nodded.

"Can you lead me there?"

She nodded again.

"Good," said the Doctor as he stood, "Because you're going to take me there. You're going to take me there and I'm going to get to the bottom of this. You're going to take me there, I'm going to get to the bottom of this and… if I don't like what I see…"

"What will you do?" asked Akitsu.

"I'll end it,"


	6. Chapter 6

Takami sat at her desk on the fourth floor in a secret office. Some might have sniggered at the redundancy of a secret office on a secret floor but Takami had learned that a certain amount of paranoia was necessary when working under Minaka. She sighed and rubbed at the bandages over her left eye to try and relieve some stress. It hadn't always been this way. Once upon a time things had been very different between them.

The computer indicated that her confederates were online and ready to begin. Even they didn't know her true position in the company. They knew she was a scientist working under Minaka, but had they known she was effectively his right hand, half of them would never have signed on with her, the rest would have driven for immediate action. Unlike her confederates she had neither ego to assuage nor a climbing desire for power. She had all the skills necessary to carefully plan her little resistance and as long as Minaka was upstairs getting drunk she would be free to act on her own agenda, for a time.

"Gentlemen, I can't maintain my loophole in the building's security system so this meeting will be brief," said Takami.

"What progress have we made?" asked a connection from Sapporo.

"Most of our pieces are in place. The Sekirei Plan has been keeping Minaka busy of late but that's not why I've called this meeting. We have a rare opportunity to drive our plans to fruition," said Takami.

"We've heard this rhetoric before," said a high ranking member from Kyoto, "I for one have yet to forget what happened to Fujitsu."

Takami winced. Ito Fujitsu was a hard lesson for her and her associates. A chance to strike had presented itself and she'd approached him as a viable ally years ago because of the influence he'd had with human resources… unfortunately once she'd spelled out the nature of things to him he'd been all for open opposition to Minaka over her preference for the cloak and dagger. Her opinion at the time was that he'd had more mouth than brains but his open opposition had had mixed results. His openness gave Minaka and his people a direction to look at and scapegoat of sorts, allowing her some extra freedom to manoeuvre. Unfortunately he'd wound up quite dead after not too long, his corpse cut into neat inch sized cubes. The fact that she'd seen Karasuba nonchalantly polishing her blade for days afterward had not seemed in the least bit coincidental.

"This time is different," said Takami, "Fujitsu was acting alone and without our support. We didn't have all the pieces in place and some of us were not entirely convinced of our own cause at the time. The biggest obstacle to our success has and always will be the Discipline squad, once they're neutralised Minaka will be helpless."

"And how do you intend to neutralise the Discipline squad? Even powerful Sekirei would struggle against them," muttered one of her contacts in Okinawa.

"The situation has changed. A man Minaka calls the Doctor has arrived in Tokyo and has proven a significant distraction for our erstwhile CEO. He's currently up to his usual antics but the most crucial factor is this. If this Doctor evades capture for three days he will deploy the Discipline squad to apprehend him."

"And?" asked the member for Kyoto.

Takami rolled her eyes. She truly hated having to spell things out, "With the Discipline squad otherwise engaged I'll have a free hand to do what we've been planning for the last several years. A number of Sekirei are already on board to assist."

"Ah, to defeat the beast you must first cut off its head," acknowledged the contact from Okinawa in understanding.

"Exactly. In three days we will have our opportunity," said Takami before noting the time, "Our window is coming to a close gentlemen. I suggest you finalise whatever preparations you have and maintain as low a profile as possible. I will signal you all when the time to strike is at hand. Good luck."

* * *

Minaka was drunk. He was drunk and he had no desire to stop drinking. He missed the old days, the simple times. He missed just being with Takami without all the bile and spittle that tended to punctuate most of their exchanges. He missed Seo's… mercenary nature and he missed Takehito's introverted brilliance.

When he and Takami had discovered the Sekirei ship on Kamikura island all those years ago they'd been good, if adversarial, friends. The discovery of a lifetime had bootstrapped their fledgling dreams into the stratosphere. It was Takami that had brought in Takehito to form an unbeatable trio of brilliance. Minaka would provide the leaps and bounds, the crazy connections that proved to be genius as well as the good business sense to build MBI quite literally from the ground up with almost no capital. Takehito had been the slow and steady type, always working towards the theoretical underpinnings of what they found… he provided the minor steps between breakthroughs, filled in the gaps of knowledge left between Minaka's leaps and bounds, which was not to say that Takehito hadn't been responsible for his own share of revolutionary breakthroughs of course. Takami herself had implemented their ideas, turning them from theory and paperwork into practical solutions. Unofficially, Takehito had also brought in Seo as a kind of… middleman, the kind of person that faded into the background and got his hands dirty. He was a facilitator of sorts. Exactly where Takehito had found him and why they were good friends had been beyond Minaka.

He could pinpoint exactly where it had gone wrong. Almost thirteen years ago he'd been struck by an incredible yet chilling vision. The skies had opened up the gates of hell, releasing billions of flying spherical demons that spoke with the voices of children. They had come, wave after endless wave decimating mankind, butchering people in the streets while the people of the world ran in terror. He had seen his Sekirei, still so young, defending Kamikura Island against the vast swarm as the islands of Japan burned in the distance while an aircraft carrier belonging to UNIT watched and did nothing. In the end, despite their valiant stand against the monsters they had all been slaughtered. Minaka had been the last to die, cowering in a bunker while the metal monsters had gutted him slowly, painfully.

He'd woken from his fevered vision in a cold sweat. It had been so vivid, so real. For a while he'd questioned his own sanity, thinking himself mad, but he remembered his vision as though he'd lived through those times, as though he'd actually experienced what he'd seen. He couldn't tell exactly when his vision would take place but he already knew he had to find a way to stop that vision from ever occurring. He had made it his mission, his solemn vow, that whatever it took he'd stop it from happening.

The only power that he knew of that could stop such forces had been the gods themselves. The Sekirei database had spoken of them; some of them even resembled human mythological gods from a dozen ancient religions. Such commonality was not unexpected and from his long studies of the data contained in the database he'd finally found a way to bring about the time of the Gods.

The result of all his hard work had been the devising of the Sekirei Plan. Everything he had done he had done to prevent the terrible future he had foreseen. He had tried to talk to others about it, years after his vision to make others understand why he was acting the way he did. Takami had dismissed it as the ramblings of a madman. Seo wouldn't listen. Takehito had argued with him mockingly and heatedly until in his anger Minaka had wished Takehito dead.

Minaka took a swig of the bottle, having long since dispensed with the shot glass. That had been his private guilt and shame. The day after their argument Takehito had disappeared, the only clues as to his fate being a trail of blood that had abruptly ended. His body had never been found and he hadn't left anything behind except for his devastated wife, Miya. With no body found the investigation had dead ended with Minaka as a suspect despite his claims to the contrary. Seo had left in disgust, unwilling to work with and for the man he felt was responsible for Takehito's death.

Takehito's disappearance and presumed death had made the Sekirei Plan much easier to implement… but Minaka had never wanted his friend dead. Not truly. He'd have much preferred a lifetime of arguments with the man that was his friend than the years of silence he'd received in exchange for his death. What he'd said had been in anger, a furious proclamation made in the heat of the moment. He'd always felt guilty that his careless words may have played a role in his friends death and whenever he felt guilty about it he always wound up drinking to try and forget. The only consolation he had, the only consolation he could take was that he knew in his bones that the Sekirei plan was intended to bring about the time of the Gods and stop the invasion of the metal demons he had seen in his vision. Billions of lives depended on that. If he had to play the part of the game master and sacrifice all the Sekirei to see it happen, he would. Anything was better then that terrible future he saw. Anything.

Minaka barely managed to set the bottle back on the table without dropping it. He doubted he could walk, let alone stand. His chair was comfy enough. He settled into an agitated sleep and dreamt of death, childlike laughter and the burning skies of Japan.

* * *

The Doctor stepped outside and drew in a breath of fresh air. Fresh air and tea… it was just what he needed to fire him up. He turned around to beckon Akitsu to hurry up and stopped stock still. The hair on the back of his neck prickled and he could feel the blood draining from his face. The name of the café…

"What?" said the Doctor.

Ookami Warui Kafe, proclaimed the signing of the café proudly.

"What!"

Bad Wolf Café. How the hell hadn't he noticed the name on entry? The Doctor whirled and saw the same two words over and over. The graffiti on the walls were in several different kinds of kanji and one instance of crudely drawn English lettering, the nearby signs, even the lettering on the roads were all saying the same thing. Bad Wolf. His hearts thundered in his chest. What was the Bad Wolf doing here? He'd taken the time vortex out of Rose long ago. He never saw the shadow falling towards him.

"What?" he exclaimed before his world suddenly snapped to black.

* * *

The entire situation had the smell of destiny about it. Yashima had just happened to pass by the Bad Wolf Café on the way to market to pick up some cheap food to fill her rumbling belly when she'd seen him… the fugitive that would grant her freedom if she'd just turn him in to MBI. She'd made a point of not calling her Ashikabi and had been casing the place from a nearby rooftop ever since… watching… waiting. She had a plan, a very simple plan. She would wait until he stepped out and then she would crack him over the back of the head with her war hammer. She'd then bring him in and then her nightmare would be over. Simple. Easy. Once it was done she'd be free of the nightmare that was her life.

Yashima watched from on high as her target left the café. Now or never. Without hesitation she leapt down as her target seemed to get flustered over something or other, swinging her immense war hammer overhead. She calculated the blow precisely. This fugitive, whoever he was, was not Sekirei. If she hit him too hard she would turn his head into a fine red mist. She had to give him the barest of taps, use the tiniest sliver of her strength to ensure that when he went down he would stay down.

The swing connected gracefully in spite of the immensity of her war hammer. It was a glancing blow to the head, just as she'd intended. The man slumped wordlessly to the pavement.

"Yatta!" she exclaimed with joy.

* * *

Akitsu's nerves were still frayed from her earlier turmoil and it felt as though hurricane winds were blowing through her for the first time and she revelled in the righteous anger. The Doctor had been struck by a war hammer wielding Sekirei. Her fear that Minaka's manhunt would lead to the Doctor's injury had been vindicated and she cursed herself for not being to spell out the danger to him more succinctly. The war hammer gave away her identity, Number 84, Yashima. She'd been one of the shyer, more withdrawn Sekirei to have grown up on Kamikura… why she would be hunting the Doctor Akitsu could only guess. Yashima swept up the Doctor and draped him over her shoulder along with her war hammer.

What mattered now was action. What mattered now was that the Doctor had to remain free. That she knew for certain. He didn't know the danger he was in. If he'd gone to single handedly attack MBI tower he'd have been slaughtered by the Discipline squad despite his uncanny luck and insane demeanour. Akitsu clenched her fists in rage as she charged out of the café.

"Yashima!" yelled Akitsu at the top of her lungs, "Unhand my Ashikabi! Now!"

The words tumbled out of her mouth before she realised their full implication, but once spoken it solidified something that had been worming its way through her mind ever since she'd met the Doctor. To proclaim him as her Ashikabi to the world so openly seemed to make the depth of their relationship real in spite of the fact that she'd only known him for less than a day.

Yashima turned and saw Akitsu, the Ice Queen herself. She was hesitant to consider the word 'recognised' though… she'd never seen her fellow Sekirei so livid with rage. The most emotion she'd ever seen during their time growing up on Kamikura had always an aloof, cold unemotionality. By way of response to Akitsu's demand she gently dropped the Doctor and adopted a battle stance. Despite her anger Akitsu, like most Sekirei, respected a code of honourable conduct when it came to combat and did not attack in the fleeting window of vulnerability. The Sekirei mark on Akitsu's forehead proclaimed her ultimate fate to all participating in the Sekirei plan. A discarded number. She was either too weak to participate… or so strong that none could control her. Yashima knew in her heart of hearts that Akitsu had never been weak… which meant the most likely outcome of this battle would be a loss.

"Number 84! Yashima!" she proclaimed with false bluster, "I claim this fugitive for MBI! Stand aside and let me pass!"

Yashima had decided. Anything was better than going back to her Ashikabi, anything at all. If she could win against Akitsu she would be free of him and she'd have proven herself against a potentially superior foe. If she lost… she had no idea what happened to Sekirei after they were separated from their Ashikabi but anything was better than what she endured on a daily and nightly basis.

"No," said Akitsu and summoned a hail of ice shards to perforate Yashima.

Yashima swung the bulk of her war hammer in front of her to ward off the worst of the deadly hail. When she felt the hail recede she lunged forward with an overhead swing, intending to crush her foe in one fell swoop. The war hammer connected with a solid block of ice, shattering it, sending broken shards everywhere.

In anger Akitsu summoned a war hammer of her own composed entirely of ice and swung in a sideways sweeping motion. The bulk of Yashima's war hammer worked against her, slowing her down. She had to choose between relinquishing her weapon to dodge the blow or trying to retain it and maintain her offensive capability. She chose poorly.

The ice hammer slammed into Yashima. The sound of cracking bones was music to Akitsu's ears. The force of the blow shattered the ice hammer and sent Yashima flying across the street and into a telephone pole with an even more satisfying crack. Not waiting for an instant, Akitsu stomped across the street intent of not ever letting her foe threaten her or her Ashikabi again. She loomed over her slumped form and pulled her head up by the hair.

"F-Finish it. Finish me," whispered Yashima, "Please… don't let me go back… to my Ashikabi…"

Akitsu let go in surprise. Had Yashima… _wanted_ to be defeated? Little things clicked into place. She noticed injuries she knew she hadn't inflicted for the first time and coupled that with her desire not to be reunited with her Ashikabi. The motivations for her attack on the Doctor made sense in a way that drained away her anger.

"Please!" begged Yashima as she prostrated herself at Akitsu's feet despite the broken bones and the pain, "Don't leave me like this! End it! Please!"

"Stay still," instructed Akitsu as her feelings once again went into lockdown.

Yashima obeyed as a chunk of ice the size of a basketball formed in mid air. With a thought she directed the ice to rise up and then fall with terminal speed.

"Thank you," said Yashima as the chunk of ice hit her with full force.

Akitsu sighed as she watched the Sekirei mark on the back of Yashima's neck fade. Intellectually she knew she had done wrong. The Doctor, for all that she knew him, would likely have disapproved vehemently at what she had done. She would have to live with that. As a Sekirei she couldn't allow her Ashikabi, even if she couldn't be winged by him, to be harmed. She knelt down and verified that Yashima was still alive.

"You're safe now," she said, understanding her weakness and her desire to capture the Doctor had been the result of abuse and not necessarily of her own volition.

She rose and sprinted the short distance back to where the Doctor lay slumped on the pavement, a small trickle of blood matting his hair. He was alive but unconscious, a wanted man in a city full of people that would be actively hunting for him. MBI controlled most of the hospitals and the few that weren't were likely being watched. She had to help the Doctor… but how? MBI forces were likely already on their way to retrieve Yashima. That meant that she had to get the Doctor away from here as fast as possible and take him somewhere isolated… somewhere safe.

She picked him up with ease and cradled him in her arms. He was surprisingly light. Using her power she formed a chunk of ice in her hand and pressed it gently against his head wound hoping to allay the worst of the injury. With time running out, she leapt forth effortlessly into the air, carrying the Doctor to safety.

* * *

Kagari slumped in a secluded alleyway exhaustedly. He was burning up, the entire day had taken its toll on him and he'd beyond overextended himself. Fighting at full power against Mutsu had been a bit more than the final straw.

It was the way of things with unwinged Sekirei, especially with the single numbers. Being winged by an Ashikabi allowed Sekirei to grow in power and reach their full potential. An unwinged Sekirei could, conceivably, also become quite powerful… but at the cost of losing control. With nothing to keep such power in check the power would take control of the Sekirei. Those that specialised with weaponry would never stop using them. Those that controlled wind or water would never stop brandishing their power, creating hurricane winds and titanic floods.

Kagari tried to cool himself as best he could. His power was fire and now he was being consumed by it. If he allowed it to progress he would burn down half of Tokyo before his body reduced itself to ashes. There was no choice. He pulled out his cell phone intent on calling Takami. MBI had certain drugs that could inhibit a Sekirei's power… all he needed was enough to recover his self control. The phone burst into flames in his hands, forcing him to drop its melting and smouldering mess to the ground.

_What an uninspiring death. Self cremation,_ thought Kagari.

He felt a drop of water followed by another and another. Kagari looked up only to see an open sky overhead. Then a deluge of water poured all over him, drenching him thoroughly, cooling him, drowning the heat and flames that had threatened to consume him.

"You are pathetic Homura!" snapped a commanding voice.

"Tsukiumi!" exclaimed Kagari in surprise.

Number 09 Tsukiumi, The Water Sekirei, dropped down and stood before him. Even in the dusk he could see she preferred her black overcoat, white dress and had maintained her long flowing blonde hair despite the trouble such things would bring her in combat. In a way it spoke volumes about her… she was so self assured as to her own power that she felt capable of getting away with such obvious combat disadvantages. One could also have thought it a subtle game to lull her enemies into a false sense of security, to make them believe her to be a weakling air head with little common sense… though Kagari privately doubted Tsukiumi had thought about her appearance on quite that level.

"We must defeat them. It's unforgivable for you to just crawl off and die," she said.

Kagari chuckled weakly. Tsukiumi hadn't changed a bit. Her hatred of Ashikabi and disdain for humanity in general had become somewhat legendary amongst the 108 Sekirei.

"Why must we defeat 'them'? Why won't you be winged, Tsukiumi?" asked Kagari.

"I could ask the same of you, Homura," countered Tsukiumi.

"I won't be winged; those belonging to fire have always been most hated by the Gods. It is how they died after all… burning in fire," he said matter of factly, "And you? You're aiming to be the strongest are you not? You'd best hurry up and find your Ashikabi if you're to achieve your goals."

Tsukiumi became livid, "Don't be so stupid! Aren't Ashikabi just a bunch of semi-evolved apes? Why would a Sekirei accept such creatures… such… things…. Vi- vi-"

"Vi?" pressed Kagari taking perhaps a small measure of pleasure at seeing her struggle to spit out her worries.

"Violating me! I absolutely won't accept it!" she snapped.

Then Tsukiumi felt it. Her heart seemed to skip a beat and for a few moments she felt weak, the image of a young dark haired man flashed in her mind. She knew she was reacting to her Ashikabi. Kagari saw it. He recognised instantly what was happening to his fellow Sekirei.

"You're…!" he exclaimed.

"I know!" she growled, "Do you know how inconvenient this is? If I ever find him I'll kill him with my bare hands! Unless…"

"Unless?" asked Kagari.

"This fugitive. MBI wants him and will reward the Sekirei or Ashikabi that can apprehend him. Do you think… do you think they might allow me to fight in the Sekirei plan without an Ashikabi?"

"Anything is possible," mused Kagari, "But I doubt you'll win without one. Besides, if Minaka wants him, I'd be inclined to hide him. Our vaunted Game Master has done little to earn my loyalty."

"Loyalty has nothing to do with this!" snapped Tsukiumi, "I fight for my own reasons, as do you! If you will not help me turn the fugitive in then consider yourself my enemy, Homura!"

Kagari's hands burst into flame. Though still weak he had recovered enough to call upon his flames somewhat safely once more.

"I offer you a counter proposal," said Kagari quietly, "We could fight here and we both know the only outcome will be a draw. Or we can go our separate ways. Whoever finds the fugitive first wins."

If he were well rested his bluster might well have been fact. Weakened as he was Kagari knew Tsukiumi would paste him with little effort.

"Is that all?" asked Tsukiumi with a grin, rising to the bait.

Kagari had Tsukiumi pegged. She'd rather fight an honourable challenge than create a rival or enemy. She held honour close to her heart unlike some other Sekirei. She'd read some of the Kamikura database that had been translated by the humans and had taken strongly to concepts that emphasised honourable combat. The closest human custom he could reckon was Bushido.

"Do you accept the challenge?" asked Kagari.

"Of course!" said Tsukiumi, "I'm just worried that you'll not be able to keep up!" With that she leapt out of the alley and away into the darkening evening.

Kagari moved experimentally. The pain of his burns would not abate soon but he bit down on the pain. He sensed that searching for the fugitive would be important. He could delay returning to Izumo House for a while longer to search.

* * *

"Well, this is different," said the Doctor as he stood on a featureless white plane.

"Hold on, no it's not different," he said, "It's the opposite of different. Actually it's kind of bland. If I'm dreaming I have to say this is most unoriginal,"

He turned around trying to get his bearings and only succeeded in losing them entirely. As best as he could confirm that he was indeed on a white featureless plane as far as his eyes could discern.

"Oh now I've gone and done it. Somehow that blow to the head threw me into the plane of suck and… oh there's something new!"

The Doctor had spun around for his fourth assessment of the infinite white plane when he saw two comfy looking chairs and a coffee table situated exactly in between them.

"Definitely wasn't there before! And Look! Comfy chairs! Oooh comfy chairs!" he exclaimed and leapt into the nearest one, "Okay perhaps this place isn't the plane of suck. Can't be. It's got comfy chairs! No place can truly be terrible if it has comfy chairs don't you agree?" He asked a brown haired girl who had most definitely not been in the other comfy chair five seconds prior.

"Doctor, it's nice to see you at last," said the girl as she sipped a cup of tea that had materialised rather suddenly as though through a critical editing mistake.

"Ah you know who I am which means I'm at a terrible disadvantage and if there's one thing I don't like its being at a disadvantage and being without tea do you mind if I have some?"

"You've already had some," explained the girl.

The Doctor frowned and then felt the presence of a teacup in his hands and a warm satisfied feeling of having just had some rather splendid tea.

"Oh you're good!" exclaimed the Doctor, "Phenomenal! Amazing! Marvellous! Can you do Sunday roast too?"

"Doctor," said the brown haired girl impatiently.

"Oh, yes, right, of course, to business… Who are you and why did you bring me here? Where is here anyway? And how did you get here?"

"I've always been here," she said, "I am Number 08, Yume, the Sekirei of Destiny,"

"Sekirei?" said the Doctor, tasting the word for the first time.

"Sekirei," confirmed Yume.

"Sekirei? Sekirei. Sekirei Sekirei Sekirei," repeated the Doctor as he wracked his overly full mind. The word was familiar somehow…

"We haven't much time, Doctor. Time is fluid, more so in a dream," said Yume.

"Oh yes! No! Yes! No… NO! No… Yes! YES! No… Ye-OW! You slapped me? You slapped me! What'd you slap me for?"

"You do that far too much," said Yume.

"I… well… Hmm. Yes I suppose," said the Doctor mildly put off. He was rather unused to being interrupted in the middle of an epiphany.

"If you go to MBI tower now you will die," said Yume matter-of-factly.

"Is that so?" asked the Doctor.

"Yes. The Discipline squad are not the type to listen to reason. If you are to succeed you will require allies to provide a distraction. Only then can you accomplish your work," explained Yume.

"And you know this how?" asked the Doctor.

"I am the Sekirei of Destiny. I see the strands of fate, Doctor, as they were woven long ago and as they may conform in the fullness of time. I threw a pebble in the pond… or more accurately, I pulled a pebble into the pond."

"The TARDIS!" exclaimed the Doctor, "You did that?"

"Manipulation of minor events can have major influences. I simply made here and now more palatable for your… machine to arrive in, nothing more nor less. Your chance encounter with Akitsu and Yashima were also my doing. Akitsu will need you more than even she knows… and of Yashima, please, forgive her Doctor, and me, her fate could not have been avoided."

"Yashima, was she the one that…" he tapped the back of his head.

Yume nodded, "Our time is nearly at an end Doctor. I'm afraid this dream will have taken up more of your time than normal, three days in the outside world, I apologise but the timing of events had to be quite precise."

The Doctor raised an eyebrow in a very Spock like manner. He was quite unused to being told about time or timing what with his being a Timelord.

"Doctor, there is one last thing, a message to pass on to you, I don't know who it came from though," said Yume.

"Well, I think I can feel myself about to wake up," said the Doctor.

Yume pulled the Doctor into a tight hug and whispered into his ear, "He will knock four times…"

The Doctor recoiled from Yume and then felt himself falling as the infinite white plane turned rapidly to black.

* * *

Nowhere was safe. Akitsu had already managed to fend off several other Sekirei searching for the Doctor, weaklings for the most part, easily deterred by walls of ice, slick paths or her ice cold demeanour. Night had fallen offering her a greater degree of cover and for the moment she was hiding with the Doctor on a rooftop overlooking the Eastern districts, his body still limp and unconscious after all this time.

They couldn't stay here for long. Movement kept them safe… safer than being stationary in any case. The cover of night, even with the city lights shining all around them, did offer some small measure of safety. Even so, Akitsu had her limits. She'd only had a single meal and precious little to drink since breakfast. Though she could easily conjure ice and allow it to melt she knew that was subject to diminishing returns and it would do nothing beyond make her even more tired and drained the longer they were on the run. Sooner or later the sun would rise and the search would intensify.

Today had been easy. With no green girl to conveniently distract the Sekirei spread throughout Tokyo they'd have only one item on their list: hunt for the fugitive. Without shelter, without a place to hide, capture was inevitable. Powerful as she was she could never hope to fight off dozens of Sekirei. She looked down at the Doctor's sleeping face. He looked so calm and peaceful, so relaxed. If it came down to a final stand to defend his freedom…

Her trail of thought deadened and a new one began. When had she decided to lay down her life for this stranger? She'd only known him for a day. Half of that time he'd been asleep or comatose. The other half he'd been a mix of mysterious, sensitive, caring, kind, angry, stoic and just plain bonkers. Was this what it was like to have an Ashikabi? To have someone you'd be willing to die for?

With a sigh she shook the thoughts away and inspected the blow to the back of his head. The ice had helped the swelling and the wound itself had stopped bleeding, which was a relief. Unfortunately she was not a doctor… she didn't know if he would recover. No doctor, save perhaps the one cradled in her arms, could be entrusted with his treatment. They were all either on MBI's payroll or under the auspices of those who were. Every way she looked at the situation she saw only closed doors and dead ends. Nowhere to run. Nowhere to hide. No way out.

With a sigh she lifted the Doctor up once more. He'd grown heavy over the past few hours, he no longer felt light. But she would carry him to the ends of the Earth if it would keep him free. She held him close and leapt up into the night, on the move once more.

* * *

Kagari caught sight of movement in the rooftops amongst the lights of Tokyo. The shape moved awkwardly. It was swift and lithe, like a Sekirei, but oddly burdened, as though it were carrying something. Or someone. Kagari smiled to himself as he realised he may just have found the fugitive, or at the least, someone whom had captured the fugitive. Though he was exhausted he knew he had to catch up to them, convince them to come with him for their own safety in the former situation or, if the latter, not to turn him in. He was too drained to catch up.

_Perhaps honour will suffice,_ thought Kagari.

He paused for a moment and drew on his power. He was weak but if he could just manage this he'd be able to crawl off into a convenient bed somewhere and die for several hours. With a furrowed brow he focused his power, lighting up the night sky as the pattern of a Sekirei crest flamed into existence above his head, both a proclamation and an invitation. All Sekirei would recognise the circle of truce… whether it was accepted was another matter entirely.

The shadowy figure paused and then disappeared. Kagari held the flaming Sekirei crest above him for a few moments before allowing it to disappear in a puff of flame. Even that small effort had taxed him. The idea of a soft bed, a warm meal and doing absolutely nothing for several days was a highly appealing one.

"Speak. Fast," said a curt, cold voice from behind him.

_Oh, she's good,_ thought Kagari as he turned slowly around; hands raised in as non-committal a posture as he could manage.

"I bear you no ill will, my name is Homura," he said, "You're Akitsu? What is a discarded number doing outside of MBI tower?"

"I escaped," she said by way of explanation.

_So it's true what they say, she's a woman of few words,_ thought Kagari.

"You were carrying someone, the fugitive? Where is he now?" asked Kagari.

She stiffened at his words, instantly defensive, "Safe," she said coldly.

_Wrong move,_ he thought, _though she didn't deny having the fugitive… from her reaction, she feels protective over him._

That thought was surprising. If Akitsu had captured the fugitive with the intent of turning him in she would have been heading towards MBI tower. As it was, they were quite far and her course insofar as he could ascertain had been towards the city outskirts. That suggested to Kagari that their goals, at least for the moment, coincided.

"Do you want to keep him safe?" he inquired.

From the look on her face he couldn't tell either way. It was locked in melancholic neutrality that couldn't be read. When she didn't answer him he continued.

"No doubt you've come to the conclusion that no matter how long you run you have nowhere to hide. You can't escape the city limits without bringing the Discipline squad down on your head. I'll make you an offer," said Kagari.

"Speak," she said softly.

"I know a safe place. No one will look for you there and no one there will turn you or your friend in. It is perhaps the safest place in the city from MBI," he said, all of which was true, nobody but a fool of the highest order would dare attack Izumo House.

Her face was a mask of unreadability as she thought it over.

"What guarantee do I have?" she said. It was positively verbose of her.

"My word and my word only," said Kagari, "Which is probably worth less than nothing to you. All I can say is that I have no intention of turning the fugitive over to Minaka. You will find your refuge in the northern quarter of the city, a place called Izumo House. I suspect you'll be able to find it easily enough; the landlady there will protect anyone under her roof from harm. I will leave you to consider the offer but I assure you, short of a miracle, you'll not last past sunrise without adequate shelter."

With a wince he recalled the burns he'd incurred from overtaxing his power… he'd need medical treatment. The one and only place for that would be Takami's hospital. Kagari left without further word, hoping that Akitsu wouldn't try to follow him and instead attend to the fugitive she had, somehow, befriended.

* * *

Miya Asama had been ready to call it a night when she heard a knock on the door. At this hour most of the tenants of Izumo House would be asleep… with perhaps the exception of Matsu who was likely perusing yet more petabytes of what was no doubt quite perverted pornography. Miya made a mental note to give her a good whack over the head as she made her way to the door. The only one out at this time was Kagari.

_He's probably forgotten his keys,_ she thought as she swung the door open.

What stood before her was a sandy blonde haired woman in a kimono that revealed entirely too much cleavage for her tastes carrying a man in a blue suit and a trench coat with hair entirely too wild for the age his face seemed to carry even in unconsciousness. It was then that Miya noticed the Sekirei mark emblazoned on the woman's forehead… announcing to all and sundry her status as a discarded number.

"Please," said Akitsu, "help."


	7. Chapter 7

A/N - If there's one thing I hate, it's hitting a low point in the creative cycle. That and a rather inconvenient cyclone that passed near my area that left the parting gift of about ten years or rain in as many minutes. This took far longer than it should have and I'm still not 100% happy with it. Sure it does the job of a "Calm between storms" chapter but there's something about it that doesn't sit well with me... probably because I had to force myself to write certain parts.

Ah well. Here it is anyway. With luck I can forge ahead and make the next chapter better. Let me know what you think!

Also, Thanks to Cylon One for being my editor on this. It may have taken me a long time to fix the stuff he pointed out but I got there in the end :)

* * *

Row upon row of computer screens illuminated the small room crammed wall to wall with computers and computer related paraphernalia. Matsu had been digging up Minato's psychological profile when her security software alerted her to visitors at the door of Izumo House. The red headed, glasses wearing Sekirei of information was curious by nature and paranoid by practice. She had left MBI on less than stellar terms… to the point that she was effectively a willing prisoner within the walls of her hidden apartment within Izumo House itself, the only place in Tokyo safe enough for her to reside. Adjusting her glasses, she minimised the profile windows for Minato and his two Sekirei, Kusano and Musubi, focusing instead on the newcomers at the door.

She recognised Akitsu almost immediately, the much vaunted Ice Queen of the Sekirei, a discarded number. Rumour had it that she was too powerful to ever be winged and had been excluded from Minaka's Sekirei Plan… though other rumours suggested that her exclusion from the Sekirei Plan went far deeper than merely being too powerful, it had always been impossible to nail down any hard evidence to prove any of the rumours true. Her psychological profile claimed that she was serious, diligent, honourable yet either incapable of feeling emotions or incapable of showing them; the head doctors at MBI had been unable to determine which exactly, though Matsu took that information with a large grain of salt as much of those documents had been heavily redacted.

What surprised her most though was what she was carrying, or more accurately, whom. It was not difficult to recognise the man from that morning's pronouncement by their much vaunted Game Master, the 'dangerous fugitive' that Minaka was willing to reward an incredible boon to the Ashikabi or Sekirei that brought him in. She immediately leapt into action, checking the usual sources and running through the open source databases before worming her way into more secure systems trying to dredge up information.

Nothing. She found nothing. Not a peep. Though she only had his face to work with that alone should have yielded mountains of data. It was impossible to live without generating a significant paper trail. There was not one passport, driver's license, bus pass, concession card, credit detail, club membership or even library card that bore his face. The only way she could account for the lack of information was a deliberate attempt to suppress information of his existence… which meant that someone out there wanted this man to remain an unperson or this man had made himself an unperson, both prospects requiring computer and informational skills and resources at least on par with her own.

She set her data gathering software to work on the fugitive and then minimised the necessary programs. Something might yet turn up in the mass of information that was the internet on this mystery man… perhaps even the reason why MBI wanted him so badly. It was far more information than even she could sift through on a casual whim and she had other concerns right now.

She drew up the profile on Sahashi Minato again, fully intent on finding out why he had failed to get into university twice but wound up instead staring hungrily at his profile pictures. The fugitive had been older but far more handsome… still, Matsu was not one to argue too much with destiny. She grinned lasciviously as she envisioned all the 'experimenting' she was going to get up to once she could get Minato alone and giggled with delight. Perhaps it wasn't too late to sneak into his room…

* * *

Takami drained her coffee and tossed the empty cup into a nearby bin as she stopped off at ward 34 on the hidden fourth floor of MBI tower. She inhaled deeply on what had to be her fortieth cigarette for the day, intent on entering the ward once she'd finished smoking. Three Sekirei critically injured in one day, two of them badly enough to knock them out of the 'game' that Minaka had orchestrated, one badly enough to land him in a hospital bed. Minaka's game had taken a very serious turn, one she wasn't at all comfortable with but was powerless to act against at this juncture, not if she wanted to topple Minaka from his pedestal cleanly.

She stubbed out the smouldering remnant of her cigarette and entered the ward. Shourai, the Sekirei of Clairvoyance lay in a room that held a single bed with an IV drip, heart monitor and most of the other trappings common to a hospital. Takami took a look at her chart noting the figures. Shourai had been a favourite in some of the unofficial and certainly unsanctioned betting pools that MBI employees ran regarding the Sekirei Plan. She'd been considered a favourite as it was commonly believed she could see the future.

Takami had done her best to dispel such rumours. Shourai could see a few moments into the future and under rare circumstances catch a glimpse of a random moment months ahead of time but her power had never been such that she had a crippling advantage over all other Sekirei. Before she'd been released into the world to find her Ashikabi, Shourai had told Takami of her vision of meeting him in the summer rain, a vision that hadn't come to pass. Now the girl never would meet him, would never fulfil her destiny. So long as Minaka remained in power she would be trapped on the fourth floor of MBI tower in Takami's secret hospital. The only chance of her vision ever being fulfilled would be for Takami's corporate coup to be a success.

For now the broken Sekirei of Clairvoyance was in a medically induced coma while her injuries healed, snapped vertebrae in the upper and lower spinal column, cracked jaw, multiple broken ribs and a cracked skull, to say nothing of internal bleeding. For human and Sekirei alike the injuries would have been fatal… if not for Itonami, the Sekirei of Healing. Without her ability to soak up injuries like water into a sponge many Sekirei would have perished. Itonami benefitted from healing others. She could reverse the process and 'give' the injuries she absorbed to others on contact. It made her a powerful opponent to fight for those in the Sekirei Plan… only those that could maintain their distance would be able to cleanly defeat her.

Takami curbed her train of thought and returned her attention to her patient. It was all too easy to slip into the mindset that this was all just a game, that Sekirei were chess pieces on a board and that some were more valuable than others. They were _people_. Flesh and blood. One hundred and eight people were being made to caper and fight one another for the pleasure and megalomania of MBI's chairman. Those that fought and lost would have been disposed of until only one remained, if not for Takami's intervention in the matter.

She left Shourai to her coma and once back in the hall lit up another cigarette. The chain smoking was the only way for her to calm her nerves what with her plans coming ever closer to fruition. A few more days and with a little luck she wouldn't need the nicotine fix to steady her nerves, not that she was deluded into thinking that breaking her three pack a day habit would be easy. After finishing her cigarette she entered ward 35.

She checked the chart of the second Sekirei to grace her wards. Yashima… poor Yashima. The injuries that had lead to her being knocked out of the game had been relatively minor, broken ribs, shattered left shoulder and a host of injuries consistent with multiple blunt force trauma. There had been nothing truly preventing her from fighting but for a distinct unwillingness to do so. Takami had read the reports about her Ashikabi and had railed against Minaka that a monster like Tanigawa had ever been allowed to wing a Sekirei. Minaka's cold indifference had spurred her to throw more effort into her efforts to reverse the Ashikabi / Sekirei bond, a project that held little prospect for success without input from long dead Takehito.

Yashima was recovering… physically. For Winged Sekirei the loss of the mark also marked the loss of personality, a death of the mind over the body. Now Yashima just stared unblinkingly at the ceiling, though if Saki was to be believed she had been seen crying silently to herself. That was something new as far as Takami knew. Once the mark and personality was gone the Sekirei was essentially a blank slate. With time and rehabilitation a new personality would emerge. The tears though could only mean that some remnant of Yashima yet remained as though she'd retreated to some safe inner place that had somehow escaped the death of personality and had no desire to interact with the outside world ever again.

Her injuries had been so minor that the only conclusion Takami had as to why Yashima would throw whatever fight she'd been in was that she had wanted to be free of her Ashikabi. That was enough to set Takami's blood boiling. When the dust settled and Minaka was safely deposed nothing on Earth would stop her from meting out justice for the Sekirei that had suffered abuse at the hands of their Ashikabi. She owed it to the Sekirei and she owed it to her guilty conscience for being forced to stand by and let it happen. With a sigh she let Yashima's chart fall back into place with a soft clatter and made her way to ward 36.

Upon entering she saw Itonami sleeping deeply in a chair by the bed that held Homura.

"Shhh," he said and pointed a finger at Itonami.

Considering his hospitalisation he seemed to be in good condition. A quick appraisal of his chart showed that he'd not sustained injury critical enough to warrant being knocked out of Minaka's game… though he had certainly taxed his body to its very limits.

"You should take it easy for the next few days," whispered Takami so as not to awaken Itonami.

"Like I need you to tell me that," said Homura. He then glanced briefly at Itonami and then back to Takami, "Busy day?"

Takami nodded, "Two Sekirei out of the game today alone. Shourai and Yashima,"

"I heard about Yashima," said Homura grimly.

"How are your burns faring? Has Itonami healed you yet?" asked Takami.

Homura smiled and then winced slightly in pain.

"No, she barely made it to the chair before dropping off, how badly were the others hurt?"

"Shourai was half dead when they brought her in. Not so much for Yashima. It's like she lost the will to fight. How bad are your burns?"

"Bad enough," said Homura, "I'll live though. Give Itonami a rest will you? When can I get out of here?"

"She'll get a chance to rest up but not before she's gone over your burns at least once," replied Takami.

In defiance Homura threw off the bed covers, got up and collected his clothes to get dressed.

"I think not. I'll heal soon enough and these burns are a lesson, I think, one that must be learned. You know where I live if you need me… though I doubt I'll be able to help much,"

Takami shook her head but knew better than to argue with Homura when he'd made up his mind. The man was as stubborn as they came. She fished for a cigarette and held it out.

"Got a light?" she asked.

Homura glared at her, unamused.

"Kidding," she said before lighting up.

* * *

Akitsu knelt by the Doctor's side watching over him. Miya had taken them in; she'd explained that it was her way and that of her deceased husband that no one was ever turned away from Izumo House. After sorting out a room for the Doctor, Miya had gone upstairs to break up some kind of unauthorised midnight visit, threatening the perpetrator with no breakfast before returning to explain the rules. Akitsu recognised Miya the moment she'd seen her, Number 01, arguably the most powerful Sekirei in existence, leader of the first generation Discipline Squad and, if rumours were to be believed, the living embodiment of a demon.

Miya had then gone to bed, allowing Akitsu to stand vigil over the Doctor. He had just lain there in blissful unconsciousness, breathing rhythmically while Akitsu had watched over him the entire night. She was exhausted from her time trying to evade capture but was still far too paranoid and wired to even attempt sleep. Throughout the night she sat and thought. It would have been so easy to simply accept MBI's offer and turn the Doctor in. She could have asked for them to lift the mark emblazoned on her forehead and allow her to seek her Ashikabi as a participant in the Sekirei Plan. It was easy. It was logical. Why then hadn't she taken up the offer? Why had she chosen the illogical, the irrational path and chosen to defend this stranger? Was it just because he had been kind to her? Akitsu couldn't accept that. Kindness, though it was rarely shown to her, was not enough to warrant not turning the Doctor in. What then? What had spurred her to this irrational decision?

She stopped herself there. The answer was in the question. The reason was irrational. She had developed an irrational attachment to the Doctor. For some reason she valued him more than favour from MBI. Was it gratitude? In part, yes. Was it friendship? Certainly. A desire to be his Sekirei? There was no question of that. Could this have been love? She understood that love was irrational in and of itself. She knew, intellectually, that she desired his company over that of all others she had seen, met and remembered. Was that love? Did she love the Doctor?

Akitsu's train of thought was interrupted by the door sliding aside to reveal a sleepy looking auburn haired woman wearing a pink top with a star and jeans.

"Miya! When's breakfast?" said Uzume as she yawned sleepily while rubbing her eyes.

Akitsu was on her feet in an instant. She didn't need to see the mark to know the smell of another Sekirei. Uzume, Number 10, known to some as the Veiled Sekirei, she was outcast from MBI for reasons that Akitsu hadn't been privy to.

"Leave," snapped Akitsu icily.

"Eh?" said Uzume clearing sleep away from her eyes before bringing them into focus.

"Leave," repeated Akitsu more stridently.

Uzume looked at the discarded Sekirei. Then she looked at the man sleeping on the floor. She then looked back to the discarded Sekirei. Then back at the man sleeping on the floor. She repeated this at least twice more in less than a moment before her sleep addled brain finally put two and two together.

_The fugitive. Here, _she thought as her mind finally clicked into place.

Though Uzume was in MBI's 'bad books' the delivery of the fugitive could potentially save her Ashikabi. The moment of hesitation was all Akitsu needed to start calling upon her powers. The temperature in the room dropped perceptibly.

"No fighting in Izumo House!" snapped Miya as she burst through a nearby door, startling the two would-be combatants. For good measure she whacked both Akitsu and Uzume over the head with a wooden spoon she happened to have handy.

"Ow!" groaned Uzume. Akitsu winced but said nothing.

"You will go into the common room and have breakfast with the rest of our tenants in a civil manner. I'm sure things will be most peaceful while I tend to our unconscious guest?" said Miya in that devilishly sweet way that only an idiot would disobey.

"Ahaha! Yes! Of course Miya!" said Uzume, laughing nervously before beating a hasty retreat.

Akitsu nodded silently and padded after her. She felt no fear but had no desire to lose her life over so minor a confrontation. They made their way to the common room in silence. At the last moment, Uzume seemed to reconsider the prospect of breakfast.

"I'm too tired, I'm going back to sleep," she muttered.

Akitsu glared at her as Uzume retreated up the stairs to her room. Had her eyes been lasers she would have burned Uzume to a cinder. Once she was reasonably certain that Uzume had not excused herself as part of some kind of ruse she continued on towards the common room.

"Finally I don't have to eat my meals in hiding anymore! Eating breakfast with everyone really is the best!" exclaimed Matsu as Akitsu entered.

"Who's that?" asked Minato once he'd noticed the newcomer.

"A new Sekirei! Look! She even has her mark!" exclaimed Musubi happily as she bounded towards Akitsu, launching into an impromptu hug.

Akitsu paused at the suddenness of the hug she'd found herself in. Sekirei did not hug Sekirei in her experience. Physical contact almost always meant combat… yet she sensed no desire for combat from the Sekirei hugging her as she had from Uzume earlier.

"Ah, Musubi, ah… isn't that meant to be a secret?" said Minato with a nervous glance towards Kagari.

"I've heard a thing or two about Sekirei," said Kagari, giving him a wry grin. Minato still didn't know he was in fact Homura and a Sekirei himself.

"Ah, Kagari, what happened to your hands?" said Minato, noticing the bandages for the first time.

"More like my whole body, I just got a little burned at work," said Kagari before allowing another mouthful of breakfast to be placed in his mouth by Kusano. Minato swore that he would never, never go into hosting. Not if it entailed what Kagari had clearly had to endure.

"Come! Sit! Eat with us! Tell us all about yourself! It's always fun meeting other Sekirei!" exclaimed Musubi with indefatigable joy as she dragged Akitsu to her place at the table.

Akitsu seated herself and helped herself to the meal laid out in front of her, taking small delicate portions with her chopsticks.

"So, what's your name?" asked Minato.

"Akitsu," she said.

"I'm Minato, this is Musubi, the girl is Kusano and the person to your right is Matsu," introduced Minato, "Welcome to Izumo House,"

"How did you come to be in Izumo House?" asked Musubi, barely able to contain her curiosity.

Akitsu glanced in the direction of the guest rooms, "My Ashikabi…" she said before returning her attention to her meal.

"How did you meet? I just happened to bump into Minato! Was it the same for you?" asked Musubi excitedly.

"He found me. In the rain," said Akitsu.

"Why does Aki have that on her forehead?" asked Kusano looking intently at Akitsu's mark.

An awkward silence settled over the table. Akitsu paused in nibbling at her meal. The company of others was stifling, awkward and uncomfortable for her. She'd lived alone for so long that the presence of others was frankly embarrassing for her. In truth she was starving but couldn't bring herself to eat in anything less than the most polite manner. Even then she felt awkward and strange, as though her every move was being watched and judged, but Kusano bringing attention to the crest on her forehead however was enough to send the feeling of awkwardness soaring.

"Not hungry," she said and made as rapid an exit towards the yard as she could manage without being rude.

"Um… did we do something wrong?" asked Minato to no one in particular.

When she was sure Akitsu was out of earshot, Matsu spoke up.

"It wasn't your fault Minato. Akitsu is a discarded number, a Sekirei either too powerful or too weak to participate in the battles to come."

"Couldn't they adjust her?" asked Musubi.

"No," said Matsu, "I know of only three discarded numbers, possibly a fourth, none of them could be adjusted, not even by Takehito. Something in their very nature made it impossible, so when the Sekirei Plan came into being, they were locked out and prevented from participating, she likely escaped from MBI. Akitsu is very much an outsider, she cannot be winged by any Ashikabi, nor can she win the Sekirei Plan."

"But… she said Ashikabi earlier?" asked Kusano innocently.

"She probably feels that the person in room 102 is her Ashikabi, but as long as the mark remains on her head," she said, tapping her forehead for emphasis, "she can never be winged."

"That's…" said Musubi sadly, her voice cracking.

"That so sad!" finished Kusano tearing up.

Both Musubi and Kusano clung to Minato for emotional support, crushing him slightly. No wonder Akitsu had left once they'd brought up the mark. Its prominent and unusual position must have been a public humiliation for her… and Kusano had innocently and unwittingly drawn attention to it.

"I'll go and check up on her, stay here," said Minato as he rose from his seat.

Minato did not like the taste that 'discarded number' left in his mouth. It made Sekirei sound like tools to be disposed of, if they were defective or had no further use. The thought was… abhorrent to him. If all Sekirei were like Musubi, Kusano or Matsu, then treating them like tools and nothing more was nothing short of monstrous. Had Akitsu been some kind of failed experiment? Had she displeased some uncaring scientist with no sense of ethics or morals? Had she been too weak or too powerful to allow the freedom, limited in scope though it may have been that the Sekirei Plan offered? The more Minato thought about it the angrier at MBI he became for treating Sekirei, people in all but name, like common objects. It was something he wanted to rectify as he made his way to the garden and found Akitsu sitting on the step very much alone.

"Mind if I sit here?" asked Minato.

She gave him a sidelong glance and gave a slight nod. He decided to sit an inoffensive distance from Akitsu.

"Kusano didn't mean to offend you," explained Minato, "She's young and curious, I'm sure you understand,"

Akitsu nodded and returned her gaze to the garden. She was finally coming down from her adrenaline high from the previous night's chase and she now felt all the bumps, bruises, scrapes, aches and pains from the previous day's combat. Her body was weary and was trying to tell her in the most clear and concise language it knew.

"I know a little bit about Sekirei," said Minato, unsure of what exactly to make of Akitsu but wanting to help nonetheless, "I know you're a discarded number… if there's anything I can do to help you or to make things easier, just ask."

"Solitude," said Akitsu.

"Solitude?" asked Minato.

"Yes. I want to be alone."

"Of course," said Minato, rising to meet her request, "But please, remember my offer. If you need anything, just ask."

"I will," responded Akitsu as Minato left.

As he made his way back to the common room he found he still couldn't quite understand what Akitsu was all about. Was she a loner by nature or had the treatment she'd endured at MBI make her that way? Her laconic nature made it hard to get a handle on what she was thinking or feeling. It was almost as though she could experience no other feelings apart from a semi permanent melancholy. One thing had rung through loud and clear though. She wanted very much to be left alone.

* * *

Minaka awoke to a sore neck, a pounding headache, a stiff body riddled with aches, and a strong desire for something salty that would take years off his life. After standing up to stretch some of the aches away he stowed away the shot glass and threw away the empty bottle before pulling out a worn book. He opened the cover.

_My Friend Minaka,_

_I give to you this book in the hope that it will expand your horizons ever further._

_Your friend,_

_Takehito_

It had been intended as a gift for his birthday, still some months ahead at the time prior to Takehito's disappearance. Exactly what a Japanese to English dictionary could do to expand his horizons Minaka could only really guess. If push came to shove he could always pay for a translator to speak English for him… still he couldn't begrudge the last gift that his friend had left to him and made good use of it. Every time he woke he'd made a habit of opening up to a random entry and saw no reason to break with habit even now.

_Opportunity: a situation or condition favourable for attainment of a goal_

He tried to enunciate the word as the dictionary instructed but couldn't quite wrap his tongue around the phonemes and syllables. Still, the word was appropriate. The coming days would spell an opportunity to move the Sekirei Plan into the next phase, the occupation of Tokyo. No Sekirei or Ashikabi would be permitted to leave and the final ten Sekirei left over would be winged. Any day now the critical number would be reached.

In addition to that the fugitive, whom had proved quite adept at evading capture, would be forced to face the discipline squad. He either had to be formidable or he had help, in any case he had to be neutralised sooner rather than later. Minaka snapped the book shut and put it away.

* * *

Miya smiled as she brought up another load of washing for the day. The rest of her tenants were having breakfast or sleeping in. Though household chores were something of a burden to most she always made it a point to find joy in every activity. She sorted the brightly coloured clothes from the dark, pausing momentarily as she came upon her latest tenant's clothes. Undressing him had been problematic at best even though he'd been surprisingly light. In a way despite his western features he'd reminded her of Takehito… thin, lanky… a strange mix of boyishness and manliness in one package.

She pulled out his pinstripe suit and thought the better of washing it straight up. It was best to empty the pockets of any valuables or important documents first. She stuck her hand down the pants pocket and found it to be surprisingly roomy. Within she found a piece of paper claiming that he was part of 'Her Royal Majesty's Secret Service' with very official looking stamps. She set that aside and continued digging. The pocket was deep… far deeper than the outside suggested. She found a plethora of items, a packet of jelly babies with a due date reading '1947', three sticks of what she assumed was gum with unrecognisable writing, a magnifying glass, a wind up mouse, a withered piece of broccoli, two pieces of string, a rock that, when she accidentally dropped it, refused to bounce in clear violation of Newton's laws, a stethoscope and…

She stopped and stared at what she was now looking at. It was a long, thin, metallic contraption not too unlike a penlight. When she pressed the button set inside the handle it made a dull whirring sound and lit up a soft blue… she'd only seen something like it once before.

Setting it aside she put the clothes hurriedly into the wash and made her way to her room. Miya had to be sure of her suspicions. She pulled out a small chest where she kept some of Takehito's little odds and ends, small objects that he'd been fond of that she kept to remind herself of her late husband. She opened the chest and sifted through the items, digging deeper and deeper until she found it.

An identical contraption to the one she'd found in her new tenant's pocket.


	8. Chapter 8

Miya didn't know what to think. In her hands lay incontrovertible proof that the unconscious man brought to her doorstep had some kind of connection to her late husband. However tenuous that connection was it was one that she was not privy to. Had her husband kept secrets from her after all? Was he a friend or associate that he never told her of or was this man involved with Takehito's disappearance somehow?

"Landlady?" said Musubi, poking her head into the room.

"Yes Musubi?" said Miya, startled by Musubi's sudden appearance though she hid it well.

"Would you mind if we sparred for a bit? I want to keep getting stronger for Minato!"

"Of course, just give me a moment," said Miya, smiling.

She put away the metallic contraption and reached for a wall mounted bokken. Miya would have to wait until the stranger woke up before she could get any answers out of him.

_If that man is responsible for my husband's death,_ mused Miya as she made her way to the back yard, _he will not leave this inn alive._

Karasuba sat in the lotus position polishing her second favourite sword. Much like herself, she always kept her weapons in perfect condition, ready to kill at a moments notice. Killing for Karasuba was as natural as breathing. It was a part of her nature. To all things there was a natural order and in her minds eye she saw herself at the top of that order, the lesser Sekirei were below her and humans… humans occupied an unnecessary position far below even the most pathetic Sekirei.

If she had it her way she would hack apart every man, woman and child. Humanity was a waste, their so called civilisation a blight upon the face of the Earth, their accomplishments laughable and that ephemeral thing they called 'love' a pathetic hallucination borne of a limited lifespan, limited imagination and even more limited intelligence.

That's why she wanted to see the world burn. The only reason she had allowed Natsuo, Ashikabi of the Discipline Squad to wing her had been due to a similar desire on his part. She would fight and win this pathetic little tournament… and when she did she would tear the world to its very foundations.

Yume would have stopped her, once upon a time. Yume had, in many ways, been a counterbalance to Karasuba. Yume had been the compassion to her mercilessness, the soothing wind to her rage, the faith to her nihilism. From the moment Minaka had proposed his Sekirei Plan she knew that Yume's fists would cross with her sword. She had dreamed of the battle to come with a lust that was only slaked by killing something. In the end Yume had given up her life, her very Tama – the physical soul of a Sekirei – to Musubi… a decision she could not for the life of her fathom. Why had Yume done that? What had been so important about Musubi that Yume had seen fit to give up her life for her?

Karasuba had never understood that decision. Now all that was left of Yume resided within Musubi. If her dream couldn't be satisfied by Yume, then Musubi would suffice… once she was strong enough. That had been why she'd always been warm towards her, kept her close. They'd made a promise to one another before Musubi had been released into the world to fight and win through until they were the only two left. She'd need to confirm that promise with Musubi and the sooner the better.

Karasuba held the sword aloft and traced its contours with a keen eye, scanning for flecks of blood, dirt, bone, gore and the usual contaminants that would build up with use. Finding none she gently sheathed the sword, rose and mounted it curve down before reaching for another of her swords… her favourite.

She unsheathed it with a slashing motion, a typical move when one intended to defeat ones opponent with a single strike, before drawing it back to inspect the blade. There were only three swords quite like this one in all of existence. It had been made by MBI using material scavenged from the spacecraft that had crashed on Kamikura island years ago, its design, curvature and forging had been handled by experts and optimised by computers. To say the sword was perfect would have been an understatement.

Only two others existed, belonging to Mutsu and Miya, but in Karasuba's mind her sword, despite being identical, was superior. It had one thing that the others' swords lacked though it had long since been cleaned off with loving care and attention.

The blood of Takehito Asama.

A darkened figure stood atop a building, familiar and yet not. He couldn't quite make them out, the sun was shining in his eyes, yet he felt a connection with this person.

"Who? I've finally found you…" said Minato.

"You bastard," said the figure acidly, "I'll kill you!"

Minato bolted upright in shock and cried out, startling several birds outside his window. He cast his gaze about in fear until his brain registered that he was still in his room, having fallen asleep whilst studying.

"A dream?" he muttered to himself.

He looked back to see Kusano rubbing her eyes drowsily. Evidently he'd woken her up.

"Ah, sorry, did I wake you up?" he asked her, feeling rotten for having interrupted her nap.

Before she could respond his phone bleeped with a text message from his sister.

_Some things have come __up; I'll have to visit later. I'll send you a mail soon… say hi to Musubi for me!_

His sister was the same as always, a relief given the strange, though thoroughly enjoyable, times he was living in. Even so the dream had made him somewhat uneasy. It had the same feeling as the dream that had brought him and Kusano together and his instincts told him that he couldn't just dismiss it. Perhaps Matsu knew something that could help. He also needed to know a bit more about the Sekirei Plan. While he had seen how strong Sekirei were he felt compelled to protect the ones that he had winged as best he could, knowing more about the plan could only help matters.

Reverse the irreversible. That was Takami's current mission and she was failing. Once a Sekirei had bonded to their Ashikabi that was that, it was permanent, irreversible, set in stone. Despite her intelligence, her drive, her compassion for the Sekirei that had been bonded to Ashikabi that were far less than desirable she couldn't determine a way to reverse the bond without harming the Sekirei.

It was times like these that Takami was glad she only worked with cell cultures and not with live subjects. She shuddered to think what would become of the Sekirei if they had to endure the dangerous experimental phases of the bond reversal procedure.

Takami wished Takehito had still been alive. He'd discovered the Ashikabi genes, the winging process, he'd been the most inspired adjuster and… and he'd been her friend. She missed playing off him for ideas, arguing over points of theory, philosophy, morality and triviality. If he were here she was confident he'd have cracked the problem with little difficulty. How much of that fantasy was true and how much was her view through rose coloured goggles was a notion Takami didn't wish to contemplate.

With a sigh she pulled cell culture 17 from the exposure palette and slid it under a microscope. Dead. She set it aside for further analysis; even a failed experiment might yield important results, and pulled cell culture 18. Also dead.

She kept swapping out dead sample after dead sample. Her current technique was a cocktail of drugs and a classified form of radiotherapy to literally strip the Ashikabi genes that had bound themselves to the DNA of the Sekirei. The problem with the process was that it worked far too well. The Ashikabi genes were removed, certainly, but along with them came a whole host of important genes that were absolutely necessary to cell functioning. In its current incarnation Takami's bond reversal was excruciating death to any Sekirei that would undergo it.

With a huff Takami reached for a pack of cigarettes and pulled out a cancer stick before reconsidering at the last second. She'd killed enough cells for today, she'd been running herself ragged for the last few days and it showed. She passed the work on to the lab assistants that were paid to do the grunt work and stalked out.

She'd take the rest of the day off. She'd more than earned a little break, what with working on the Sekirei Plan, working out the details of her clandestine coup, treating Sekirei on the hidden floor of MBI tower and working on the bond reversal. She'd need all her strength for tomorrow when the Discipline Squad went after that fugitive and the opening for her little coup came through.

Miya swung the bokken with practised ease, stopping at just the right moment, and then drew the practice sword back before entering a different stance for a different swing. Though she didn't need training to maintain her skill and lethality in combat she nonetheless felt it was necessary to maintain mental and physical discipline.

Minato had left the inn earlier in the company of Kusano and Musubi to draw out Tsukiumi with the official excuse of going shopping. Miya had feigned ignorance, preferring to keep her true identity hidden from Minato.

She paused in her exercises and looked toward the sleeping figure on the step. Akitsu looked peacefully exhausted even in the throes of a deep sleep. Of all the Sekirei to find their way into Izumo House she felt Akitsu was the most deserving of compassion. As a discarded number she could never be winged, could never claim an Ashikabi for herself and could never fulfil what destiny had in store for her. Yet of all Sekirei it was arguably she was the most free. No fate bound her soul to another, MBI wouldn't be overly concerned if she chose to leave, her path was well and truly her own.

Miya turned her attention back to her exercises. In her minds eye she saw herself being ambushed by twelve others. With a single stroke she unsheathed her bokken, killing four in a single stroke just as the ancient grand designer of the Katana had intended. Sensing the others' approach, she leapt to the side and cut out the legs from under another of her assailants. Five down, seven to go.

She adopted a defensive crouch and glared at her imaginary foes. Miya enjoyed these mock battles with her own imagination. They kept her sharp, focused and prepared for any eventuality. If push ever came to shove, not that it would ever come to that, she was confident she could overpower any of the current tenants of Izumo House. Of course, if she truly believed any of the tenants would turn against her, they would never have been admitted in the first place.

The remaining foes rushed her all at once. She leapt up high enough to carry her over their defences and slashed down with her sword. One imaginary foe went down with a head that had been sliced open, another reeled back, wounded at the shoulder and bleeding out.

Five left. Now it was their turn to be defensive. Miya grinned as she swung her sword with grace. Her enemy parried expertly, opening her up to attack. Three rushed her but one held back, trying to circle round and ambush her from behind. She used the force of the parry to her advantage and redirected her swords path, cutting one opponent in the abdomen before the other two combined their strength to block her blade.

Four left. She drew her blade back and spun around, meeting the enemy that had tried to slice her back open with a rapid kick that sent him flying. Not willing to leave her flank exposed for any longer than was necessary, she completed her spin with her blade in a matching arc. They barely had any time to react. Two heads flew up in the air, one severed at the neck, the other at about eye level.

Two left. The one she had kicked had recovered and was charging at her in a rage. The other knew that he was in a hopeless bloodbath and panicked, dropping his sword. Miya didn't even hesitate. She sliced off the arm he'd favoured for his sword and swung around to deal with his enraged comrade… too late. The imaginary foe ran her through the heart right up to the hilt of his sword but not without paying the necessary price.

In her minds eye the foes, the blood, severed viscera all disappeared. It wasn't often that she envisioned defeat but she always had to consider the possibility. A failure to do so would only ensure it when the time finally came. Even after all these years she found she could always surprise herself in such training sessions. Sometimes she would face off against a thousand such foes, fighting without neither want nor care for living. Other times she found herself fighting just a single foe as powerful and as skilled as herself. Only Karasuba came close to matching her.

Karasuba. The name left a bitter taste in her mouth. She'd been less than tactful about Takehito's death. Karasuba's condescending attitude in Miya's time of grief hadn't gone over well. There was also a part of Miya that suspected, but could never prove, that Karasuba had had something to do with Takehito's death. If she could ever prove it… there wasn't a force on Earth that could stop her from balancing the scales. She knew there would be collateral damage if it ever came down to a fight between Karasuba and herself but Miya knew herself well enough to know she wouldn't care.

Takehito. The discipline squad. The stranger and fugitive from MBI. Somehow they were linked. Miya could feel that in her bones. She bowed slightly to her long-gone imaginary foes and strode softly past a sleeping Akitsu to finish out her chores for the day.

Akitsu stopped in the waist high red grass. She looked up and saw an orange sky shining with the character of fire. In the distance, silver mountains reflected the sky back to itself, creating a shimmering vista that, though alien in nature, stole her breath in wonderment.

This was no place on Earth that she could think of that much was obvious to her. Yet she had seen this place before… not personally but second hand. The café sprung to mind, that thing the Doctor had done to try and help her. She'd caught a glimpse of his mind. That glimpse had been the equivalent of capturing a single drop of water in comparison to the vast ocean of which it had once been a part.

"Beautiful, isn't it?" said the Doctor.

Akitsu turned to look at him. He hadn't been there a moment a go.

"It's been so long since I thought of home… Gallifrey. I think I like to bury the memory so it won't hurt me," he mused absently.

"Doctor?" queried Akitsu.

"No, not really," he replied, "Just an echo… an afterimage of what you saw from before. This dream is just your way of trying to sort through what you saw."

The Doctor approached and put his arm around her, guiding her towards… a blue box. Behind the blue box stood a grand citadel, towering into the sky and protected by a transparent bubble of some kind. Even from this distance Akitsu could see the size and grandeur or the citadel, a monument built to withstand time and proclaim to the ages the glory of the civilisation that built it.

"It's starting," said the Doctor.

Akitsu felt it. A deep rumbling that came from the sky and the ground. She looked up and saw them, flying disclike ships that swarmed the skies, they radiated a malice that Akitsu had only encountered in her nightmares.

"Who? What?" she asked, her monotone not betraying the primal fear that surged through her.

"The Daleks," said the Doctor in a tone of dread, "This is the day it all started. The first day of the Time War."

The Doctor didn't wait for the shooting to begin. He grabbed her by the arm and pulled her towards the blue box, flung the doors open with casual recklessness and crossed the threshold with an impatient nonchalance.

Akitsu blinked. She rubbed her eyes to ensure they weren't deceiving her. The box had been tiny on the outside and yet within…

"Yes, bigger on the inside!" said the Doctor excitedly, clapping his hands with glee.

"Where?" asked Akitsu.

"Welcome to the TARDIS, Akitsu. TARDIS stands for Time and Relative Dimensions In Space… just a fancy way of saying the old girl is bigger on the inside then it is on the outside. She's my Spaceship, my Time Machine and my friend!" rambled the Doctor.

"She?" queried Akitsu with a hint of jealousy.

As though in response, the central pylon shimmered, hummed and pulsed with motion, generating a grinding sound that was familiar to her ears. The Doctor leapt over to a nearby console and then began to stroke it lovingly, whispering sweet nothings into a nearby speaker patch. Akitsu's feelings of jealousy quadrupled on the spot.

"Now, I'd offer to take you somewhere but as I mentioned earlier, this is a dream, and unfortunately you're about to wake up," said the Doctor.

"I am?" asked Akitsu.

"Ah, you're awake," said Miya as she stood nearby her.

Was she awake? Akitsu didn't even remember opening her eyes… for that matter she couldn't accurately recall when or where the dream had transitioned over to reality. She sat up experimentally. Everything felt surreal, as though she were still dreaming.

"Awake," said Akitsu, feeling a slight crack in her neck after having fallen asleep at an awkward angle.

"Good," said Miya with a genuine smile, "Its best that you go and clean yourself up. Once you're finished, you can help me with dinner."

Dinner? How long had she been asleep for? The sun seemed to be coming from a vastly different angle, had she really slept through most of the day so casually? Then again, considering how exhausted she had been…

_My Ashikabi,_ she thought.

That entire time he'd been without her protection, lying in his room, vulnerable to anyone that would stake a claim to his sleeping form.

She shot up with a suddenness that her body was not quite ready for and stumbled towards his room. She barely took two steps before a hand on her shoulder stopped her cold.

"He is quite safe, anyone who does harm to another while under my roof is not welcome in Izumo House," she said with an unnerving sweetness.

_All she needs is a hannya mask_, thought Akitsu. For one terrifying moment her mind supplied the necessary imagery.

"You needn't worry about the others. Aside from Matsu and your Ashikabi, only you and I remain in Izumo House. Now, go bathe, I'm afraid you're beginning to smell," said Miya.

Akitsu looked at Miya's back as she walked towards the kitchen. She sniffed idly.

The landlady was right. She was beginning to smell.

Chiho lay in her hospital bed, dejectedly staring up at the ceiling and occasionally out the window to see the open sky before her. She'd been sick ever since she was a little girl… the virus that had weakened her was tenacious. No matter what treatments the doctors gave, the result was always the same; effective enough to ward off the worst of the virus, but never enough to eliminate it entirely.

She'd been living a lonely life in the hospital until Uzume came along. The time they spent together seemed to fly past, always being cut short by the restrictions on visiting hours. She came whenever she could, dressed up in costumes for her, and told her wild and fanciful stories about the place she was staying in. Uzume was the light of Chiho's life, made all the better by the fact that they shared a bond unique to the both of them: the bond of Ashikabi and Sekirei.

It was then that she felt that familiar empathic tug on her heart. Something was worrying Uzume. What worried Uzume inevitably worried her as well… but she knew that Uzume had reserves of strength and tenacity that would help her overcome most everything. Chiho had become convinced, lately, that it was Uzume's inner strength that had kept her alive and fighting for the last few weeks. Whenever she felt weak or drained she would just think of her smile, the way she looked at her when she was unconcerned with worry or the Sekirei Plan and the lethargy would fly away from her like a startled bird. Just thinking of her now was helping to lift her spirits.

Her thoughts were interrupted by a nurse coming to check on her.

"You have a visitor, a police officer wishes to ask you a few questions," said the nurse.

_A police officer? Questions? What?_ Thought Chiho as the officer in question strode in.

The officer wore thin rectangular black glasses, her hair was done up in a regulation bun, in addition to a smartly cleaned and pressed uniform endemic to the Tokyo Police department complete with gloves, radio, handcuffs and a revolver. Her demeanour was all business, not at all like the police officers she saw in dramatised television shows that resolved crimes in ludicrously short times.

"Ms. Hidaka?" said the police officer as she pulled out a notepad and a pencil.

Chiho nodded apprehensively.

"Ms. _Chiho_ Hidaka?" queried the officer further as though to confirm something.

Chiho nodded again. The officer scribbled a note on her pad and then settled a prickling glare at Chiho as though she were guilty of a crime.

"We understand that you've been in contact with a certain individual, known in some circles by the name of 'Uzume', is this correct?" asked the officer crisply.

"I… yes I know her. What's this about?"

The officer jotted down another note before continuing.

"And she's been visiting you almost every day, is this correct?"

"Yes… what's this about? Has something happened to her?" asked Chiho, her worry rising.

"We've had a few anonymous tip offs about some criminal activity involving both her and you," confirmed the officer.

"What? Her and me? She would never… I could never… what are you talking about?" asked Chiho with growing confusion.

In a flash the officer brandished the handcuffs and cuffed her.

"You're under arrest for grand theft," said the officer with a contempt reserved only for hardened criminals.

"Theft? Theft! What did I steal?" exclaimed Chiho.

With her remaining hand the police officer pulled off her glasses and undid her bun, letting her hair fall free.

"You stole my heart," said the grinning officer, revealing herself to be Uzume in disguise.

Chiho gasped. Then she giggled as the tension unravelled from within. Then she burst out laughing at exactly how silly the entire situation had been. Uzume had had her completely fooled from the very beginning… her demeanour and look had been completely different from how she usually was. That combined with makeup and keeping her off balance with the serious tone and fairly convincing police talk had managed to keep her fooled.

"Never, never do that again!" giggled Chiho.

She pulled Uzume closer in by the handcuffs, still attached to both their respective wrists.

"You didn't enjoy that?" asked Uzume coquettishly.

"Only the part where I realised it was you," said Chiho before whispering, "and just how criminally _good_ you look in a uniform!"

Uzume reddened slightly at just how openly she'd admitted to that particular fetish, even if it was in a hushed whisper.

"Shh!" hissed Uzume while trying to stifle a giggle of her own, "If you get too excited they'll throw me out like they did last time!"

"Last time we weren't handcuffed together," said Chiho coyly, "They're very nice handcuffs by the way."

"I think I may have lost the key somewhere," said Uzume with a wink.

Chiho picked up on the subterfuge instantly. More than a few times the doctors and nurses had shooed Uzume away as a nuisance to their patient, or Uzume had been called away on some sort of business. Cuffed as they were Chiho was glad that she could spend quite a bit of much needed time with the woman she loved as much as life itself.

Akitsu had had time to think about her dream while using the Furo. Had that truly been the Doctor's home world? Had it truly been consumed by war? The imagery had been accompanied by a feeling of… loneliness. Even when he'd been stroking and crooning the innards of that blue box he'd called the TARDIS with a love that fired a jealous zeal in her, she'd sensed distinct and abject loneliness radiating from the Doctor.

She realised that he wanted the company of others, desperately wanted to have someone to be his anchor, to keep him from going too far. She was the opposite. The company of others disrupted her carefully cultivated silence and solitude.

Though it had been days since he'd last been awake… the chaos and confusion that the Doctor seemed to bring about in her… hadn't been entirely unpleasant. The opposite, in fact. It was as though she were rediscovering a part of herself that had long been buried and forgotten.

As Akitsu was drying herself off she heard a commotion from downstairs.

"Stay off him! I'm his legal wife!" shouted an unfamiliar voice.

The sounds of an argument rapidly ensued with the voices rising higher and higher as Akitsu got dressed. Though Akitsu had every confidence that the landlady would control any violent outbursts she wanted to hurry down and ensure no harm could come to the Doctor.

"Well if this is how it's going to be let's fight!" shouted the same unfamiliar voice with the anger of a woman scorned.

Akitsu hurried down the stairs but was stopped short by Matsu, who held a finger to her lips and listened in while the landlady delivered discipline backed up by a warning that would have sent mutually belligerent armies into screaming retreat. Akitsu took the hint and listened in as Miya explained her understanding of the situation. She stole a quick peek around the corner before pulling back, just long enough to catch a glimpse of the newcomer.

Number 09, Tsukiumi, and from the smell of her, newly winged by Minato. Akitsu knew her as a fellow elementalist, with mastery over water as opposed to her mastery over ice. She was said to be as powerful as she was beautiful, which Akitsu had, until now, thought unjustified hyperbole. The other rumour that she'd heard was that she hated Ashikabi… the fact that Minato had even managed to wing her and live spoke of determination, strength or sheer luck. Probably all three.

She barely noticed as Kagari headed up the stairs after a brief exchange with Tsukiumi, followed by Matsu. Now that the commotion was over with Akitsu felt it best that she come forward and offer to help the landlady with dinner. It was only fair as she was sheltering the Doctor from a world that wanted to harm him.

"Minato! Is this another of your Sekirei!" exclaimed an irate Tsukiumi at the sight of Akitsu.

"No! No! She isn't mine!" insisted Minato.

Tsukiumi gave a withering glare to her Ashikabi before settling the self same glare directly at Akitsu, looking at her closely as though sizing her up for a fight.

"And who exactly are you?" asked Tsukiumi, her eyes fixed squarely on the Sekirei Crest tattooed onto Akitsu's forehead.

"Akitsu," she said.

"Do you not have a number? Where is your Ashikabi?"

"Ehehe, Tsukiumi! Perhaps we should let Akitsu help the landlady with dinner?" said Minato as he mercifully pulled Tsukiumi away from Akitsu to quietly explain her situation tactfully.

It was as dinner was almost done that Uzume finally returned home still in her police uniform. The intoxicating smell of food was enough to make her stomach thunder with demanding approval at the meal to come.

In the end the doctor's hadn't much been perturbed by the handcuffs as she had hoped they would… apparently they indeed _were_ prepared for almost any situation that might arise… and that included a pair of industrial strength bolt cutters to separate patients and visitors.

Still, the entire affair had served its purpose in lifting Chiho's spirits. More than that it had made her laugh, smile, and completely forget that she was sick, even if only for a time. Through it all the love for her Ashikabi had only grown. Her only regret was that she couldn't spend more time just being with her.

"Ah, how did your visit go?" Miya asked in greeting at the door.

"It went well," said Uzume as she presented her half of the handcuffs.

"Ah, I hope you didn't have any improper relations in the hospital with your Ashikabi," said Miya sweetly with more than a hint of cheek in her words.

"Uhh… no… nothing at all like that…" said Uzume nervously. She couldn't quite tell if she was being teased or threatened at the moment. She decided to go the safe route and assume that it was both simultaneously and do her best to not find out and break the quantum state.

"Dinner is almost ready, get changed and be down quickly," said Miya before setting back off the kitchen.

Minaka was a genius. That's what every single evaluation of his psyche and intelligence said. That's what everyone that worked with him said. Even Takami had begrudgingly acknowledged his ludicrously sharp mind. Even so, Minaka knew that the line between genius and insanity was the one ephemeral thing that he was usually quite excellent at catching: success.

Thus far the blue box he'd had delivered to the lab inside MBI tower had defeated him time and again, insisting to almost every instrument that it was made of wood and nothing of any terrible importance. But Minaka felt, he knew, better and the instruments he'd brought in from Kamikura confirmed that. The alien technology had confirmed to him that this blue box was anything but. It was a chameleon, an entity that could change its size, its shape, and its very appearance to fool one into thinking it unremarkable.

That could only mean great power and treasures within. Minaka was salivating with the possibilities. One alien spacecraft had fallen into his lap and once exploited using his genius had made him one of the most powerful men on the planet. The problem was getting in. Nothing man made could penetrate the surface.

It was a good thing he had access to certain alien technologies. Pieces scrummed and scavenged from dozens of shady organisations, private collections and in at least one case technically on loan from UNIT after he'd "encouraged" a very blackmail-able official to do him a favour.

Now before him stood the oddest contraption of jury rigged alien and human technology he'd ever had reason to construct. Minaka had missed this kind of challenge, the hands on problems that he alone could solve. The Sekirei Plan had been the one thing keeping him from getting bored to tears with running MBI.

He called it the Locksmith. It was built from an alloy called Dalekanium, scavenged from the few Daleks to have been destroyed during their 2008 invasion. Much of the conducting fibre had been extracted from the ATMOS devices that had nearly choked the world with toxic fumes. Most of the more mundane functions, aiming, tracking and so forth were carried out by good old Japanese electronics. The final and most crucial pieces however had been the most difficult to locate.

In the middle of a long cylindrical chamber a Dalek eyepiece sat. Alone it was harmless. Minaka had found however that if one ran a laser through it the laser light was greatly amplified. The Locksmith was one of the worlds first superconducting ultra-amplified laser systems to be built in such a compact package. As it was it was completely useless to Minaka's desires.

But he had yet to install the final piece. There were only eight of them in existence as far as he knew, and one of them had been stolen some time ago. It was a long, slender crystal.

It was one of the Jinki, precious, powerful, mysterious. From what he could decipher of them, they were vessels of the gods, the heart and soul of their most powerful weaponry. Minaka believed that when gathered together and used properly the Jinki would bring about the age of the gods once more. If used improperly, they could eliminate all Sekirei and the Ashikabi they were linked to. He was willing to take the risk to penetrate the secrets of the blue box… but he had to be careful nonetheless.

Minaka deftly inserted the Jinki in front of the Dalek eyepiece so it was the very last component the laser would be filtered through and powered up the Locksmith. He aimed it carefully at the "lock" on the door of the blue box. While he knew that its appearance was merely and illusion he knew from the camera footage that the illusion still fit followed a certain logic. The Doctor had left through the self same door as caught on the CCTV footage he'd managed to acquire. It stood to reason that disguised as it was it would still need a recognisable system of entry and security, and if that held up in the illusion, that meant that a door would still be a door and a locking system would still be a locking system. He hoped.

"Firing Laser!" he shouted to no one in particular and pushed the button. He'd always wanted to say that out loud.

The laser hummed with power. Unlike lasers depicted on horribly unrealistic television shows, the laser light was invisible even while travelling through the air. The only way anyone could see the laser would be if they were right in front of it, and then only for a fraction of a second before it burned through their skull. That or if they decided to scatter the beam with an aerosol. Minaka dialled up the power of the beam. Coolant systems began to work as several of the looser components of the jury rigged Locksmith began to rattle slightly.

Minaka adjusted the wavelength of the laser as the Jinki began to glow. It was times like this that his instincts were razor sharp. Science came as naturally to Minaka as breathing did to most people. He brought the wavelength down to 225 nanometers. The coolant systems were working overtime as the machine rattled with the power pulsing through it and all the while the Jinki simply sat there and glowed, eerily unphased by the rattling machine.

Something in the back of his mind nagged at him to stop but he refused. He checked his instruments and readings on the blue box and found them to be oscillating… that was a good sign! He was getting closer! He felt it! He knew it!

The nagging feeling in the back of his mind changed tone, asking him to stop, to please stop, that what he was doing was wrong. Minaka knew there was something wrong. A voice was in his head trying to get him to back down from a treasure trove of discovery waiting behind that door. Was this some kind of defence mechanism? Was that blue box somehow alive and trying to defend itself?

A wordless scream filled his head but the underlying message was the same: asking, begging, and screaming for him to stop. Minaka's hand reached over to the button that would cut power to the laser but stopped himself short. He would not be circumvented. He would not be coerced. He would not be stopped. If the blue box was alive, if this mental compulsion was some kind of last ditch defence then it must mean he was right on the threshold of a discovery that would be the envy of the ages. Minaka grit his teeth and stood resolute.

The scream stopped. The laser shut down by itself. Minaka blinked. Had the cooling system initiated an auto shutdown? Had he failed? Minaka checked over the Locksmith's systems. Heat was in the proper range, power flow was all good… And then he saw it. Minaka wasn't quite sure what to make of it.

The door to the blue box was ajar.

It was late in Izumo House. Everyone had retired to bed after dinner. Akitsu, at the landlady's behest, was sleeping in a separate room from the Doctor while he slept on in blissful ignorance in his own room.

The Doctor's eyes burst open and he shot up in shock. It felt as though someone had kicked him squarely in the guts. The TARDIS. He couldn't feel the TARDIS anymore. It had gone into lockdown. That was bad. Very Bad. With Capital Letters To Indicate The Importance Of The Statement. Very. Very. Bad.

To the Doctor's complete and total lack of surprise it got worse as he felt the tip of something sharp and hard at the edge of his throat pressing with enough force to let him know he was completely at someone's mercy but not quite hard enough to break skin. Yet. The lights flickered on and he saw a very formidable looking woman holding an equally formidable looking sword. As far as swords went there was a wrong end and a wronger end to be at. The Doctor felt he was at the very least on the wrong end at the moment.

"My name is Miya Asama," said the woman icily as she threw the Doctor's Sonic Screwdriver at him.

She then held up an identical Sonic Screwdriver.

"You knew my husband," she continued in that same deathly cold tone, "Prepare to talk!"


	9. Chapter 9

A/N

Hey all. I think we can all agree that this chapter has been more than a bit overdue. Part of that has been in the writing itself. I've been laying plot threads thick and fast, to say nothing of red herrings to throw you off as well. Trust me when I say, writing events before they're supposed to chronologically occur is a definite headache. Yep, timetravel will happen... eventually. Also, about half of this chapter didn't even exist a week ago. The other part of the delay has been with life proper. Work and studies have been keeping me busy as is... lately I've had to look after puppies as well. I don't think I need to mention just how _distracting_ puppies can be.

One important change that occurs in this chapter that I'd like to put a foreword on is the usage of Japanese honorifics. I'm still not 100% confident with their usage but it's a change from prior chapters that didn't use them. It's a narrative cue that the TARDIS isn't translating anymore. Once the TARDIS comes back into the picture again the honorifics will be dropped again in favour of the TARDIS translation.

Anyway, long chapter is looooooong. I'll stop rambling and let you enjoy it.

* * *

The Doctor swallowed nervously. He'd heard grand ultimatums from Empires that could have crushed the Universe with a thought and threats from the darkest terrors. Not a single one of them had succeeded in making the least bit nervous.

Until now.

"What?" said the Doctor apprehensively.

"You will speak Japanese in my presence," said Miya tersely, pressing the sword against his throat ever so slightly.

The Doctor swallowed. He had been speaking Japanese… hadn't he? With a start he realised that the TARDIS wasn't translating for him anymore. He'd blurted out 'What' in Gallifreyan, a tongue that no one on Earth had ever heard.

"Sorry," he croaked switching to Japanese, "Um… what happened? How did I get here?"

Miya gave him a withering glance. She didn't appreciate the detour in conversation but accepted that her 'guest' might be somewhat disoriented on waking.

"Akitsu brought you here after you were injured. You are safe as long as you answer my questions," she hefted one of the Sonic Screwdrivers in her free hand and indicated the one she'd tossed, "Explain."

The Doctor looked at the Screwdriver sitting on the blanket covering his lap then back to the one held by his… host. Both were Sonic Screwdrivers of the same make and type that he favoured in his every day jaunts across the universe. Both were identical in every way he could ascertain.

"I'm sorry… what?" said the Doctor as, not entirely awake, he fumbled to see what it was exactly that his host wanted explained.

"This was found amongst my husband's personal effects after he died. He liked to collect odd things that caught his eye at times… but I've never seen anything quite like this. That," she indicated the other Screwdriver, "I found on you. Where did you get it? Did you know who my husband is? Is he… still alive?"

Though her voice had been as resolute as iron there was the tiniest of tremors towards the end… a hint of desperation, the tone of someone whom had lost someone irreplaceable.

"Miya-san, may I call you Miya-san?" asked the Doctor, hoping he was getting the honorifics correct.

"You will address me as Landlady-sama," she tensed.

"Landlady-sama… what was your husband's name?" asked the Doctor.

"Takehito Asama," responded Miya.

The Doctor thought. He churned through nine hundred years of memory searching for the name but couldn't recall ever having come across it. It could only have been the name of someone he hadn't met yet. Then again he could also have been one of the countless people he'd met but had never learned the name of… a bad habit he avoided as best he could.

"I'm sorry, Landlady-sama, I'm afraid I never knew your husband," said the Doctor carefully.

"But why do you have this?" asked Miya, "Why do you have something that my husband had… that nobody else I know has?"

"Landlady-sama… could I… take a look at that?" he asked hesitantly.

Miya scowled at him as though he'd grown a second head and that second head were spouting obscenities in French. Carefully, slowly, deliberately, she handed him her Screwdriver.

The Doctor held both Screwdrivers carefully, hefting them to check their weight, eying them carefully despite the sword still pointed at his throat. He then carefully brought the two devices together.

ZAP!

Miya didn't flinch. Instead she cast another of her withering glares at the Doctor.

"Ah, I see," said the Doctor.

"See what?" asked Miya tersely.

"It's complicated," said the Doctor.

"Explain," said Miya with rapidly fading patience.

"You'd never believe me," he insisted.

Miya glared at him by way of response.

"This Screwdriver," said the Doctor, holding up the Screwdriver in his right hand, "and this Screwdriver," he continued, indicating the one in his left hand, "are the same item. This one," he held up the one in his right hand, "is from the present, the one you found on me, and this one," he raised the one in his left hand, "the one you gave me, is from the future. Well, not really the 'future' future but it's own personal future which is actually in the past, but not its past, rather our past which has now become our present."

"What." Said Miya flatly.

The Doctor considered his answer carefully.

"At some point in the future, this screwdriver," he indicated the one in his right hand, "travels back in time and becomes this one," he indicated the one in his left, "and is found by your husband before his death," said the Doctor matter of factly.

"I never said my husband died," she snapped, "he went missing that day. They found his blood but they never found his body. As long as they never find that he's still alive."

The Doctor gave a slight nod in assent to vehemence in her statement. He'd lived long enough to know the sound of someone who hadn't given up hope that a loved one would make it home no matter what common sense would have to say about the subject.

Calming herself, Miya finally took a moment to consider the full impact of the Doctor's explanation.

"But you're right. I don't believe you," said Miya, "You speak as though one can travel through time as easily as passing through a doorway."

The Doctor met Miya's gaze. He was convinced. Absolutely convinced that she wasn't human. No human was… this made of iron. No… iron was the wrong word. Iron was inflexible, unfeeling, cold… while this woman was definitely all those things she was certainly more. The only simile that came to mind that was even close was 'the velvet glove in the iron claw'. There was only one species in all of time and space that had that… 'smell', smell being the best term for that Time Lord sense that could differentiate species. She wasn't quite Sekirei, that much was certain, but she was definitively not human.

But how was he to answer her? He knew that playing stupid was useless. She'd see right through that particular façade and he'd ruined any chance of getting information out of her after showing just how clever he was. That left the truth as the only option, the wonderful thing being that the truth was so unbelievable to most people that they often defaulted to considering him insane.

"That's because one can travel through time. Perhaps not as easily passing through a doorway but…" the Doctor trailed off as he noticed Miya was not interested in that train of thought.

"Who are you?" she demanded.

"My name is the Doctor,"

"Doctor is not a name," she stated tersely.

"Oi! It's a perfectly good name!" retorted the Doctor.

"Very well then. Doctor who?"

"Just… the Doctor…"

"The Doctor?" she asked sceptically.

"Yep," he confirmed.

"It's quite rude not to tell others your name and insist they refer to you only by your title,"

The Doctor was gobsmacked. Most people just accepted he wanted to be called Doctor and left it at that. Miya was a completely different beast altogether.

"My title is actually 'Lord Doctor'," he snarked.

Silence echoed between the two for an infinite moment as the two sized each other up. The moment of tension broke as Miya cracked a smile and sheathed her sword.

"Very well then, Doctor-san," said Miya sweetly, "I imagine you're quite thirsty after so long without water. You may get dressed while I make us some tea. While we drink that… you'd best tell me everything you know about time travel and find a way to pay the rent for the last three days."

The Doctor's mind irrationally latched onto the 'get dressed' part of her sentence and disregarded most of the rest as an afterthought.

"…What?" exclaimed the Doctor realising that he was naked underneath the futon, "…wait… when did I… did you?"

"You have nothing I haven't seen before," said Miya with a sweet smile before turning serious once again, "Except for the matter of having two heartbeats…"

The Doctor gaped.

"How…?" he trailed off as she held up a stethoscope that had undoubtedly come from the bigger-on-the-inside pockets of his pants.

_Oh she's good,_ thought the Doctor, _Too good._

* * *

Takami gulped down her espresso rapidly before choking off the last gulp. She hated espresso. She hated the taste of it, hated the texture of it, hated the smell and she especially hated the price of it. There was just one thing and one thing alone that she liked about it. Caffeine. She preferred espresso over coffee simply for the fact that, the way she brewed it, she could get more caffeine per cup than straight coffee and most energy drinks. She considered having a cigarette with her third cup but thought better of it. The less she smoked today of all days the better.

This was it. This was the day her well laid plans were going to come to fruition. Her relatively indolent resistance cells would spring into action today. From Okinawa to Sapporo, to MBI holdings as far away as Los Angeles and London, Johannesburg and Sydney, her people would move to wrest control of the multi-national company away from Minaka and his lapdogs, all with the end of placing herself in charge… until she could find someone sane and responsible enough to run the company so she could get back to doing real science again.

The sharp knock on the front door threw her from her thoughts. She checked her watch… it was before eight in the morning… the company car wouldn't be here to pick her up unless…

Nervous that her operation had been foiled at the last second, she checked who was there through the peep hole. A westerner stood there in a clean pressed business suit, not horribly out of place in the middle of Tokyo… but it wasn't anyone she knew.

She drew the door open but kept it on the latch. While the inner city Tokyo apartments owned by MBI for VIP's within the company were quite secure she wasn't taking any chances she didn't have to take.

"Takami Sahashi-san I presume?" he asked through the opening. His Japanese wasn't perfect and his accent was unmistakably British.

She nodded once and found rather quickly the man had rudely jammed his foot in the door.

"I'll be brief," he said curtly, "We know what you're planning. We know what you're doing. We have no plans to interfere… on the provision that you'll give us a receptive ear once you're in charge."

"What… who… I have no idea what you're talking about!" snapped Takami.

_Idiot! You may as well confess with a denial like that!_ She cursed mentally.

"A few of your people were caught mouthing off in a London pub. Given the time, money and resources MBI has expended to keep us out of Japan and away from MBI holdings my… superiors couldn't pass up such an opportunity. We've plugged your leak and it'll stay that way as long as we're happy."

Takami dropped the act and changed her tactics. He knew. He knew that she knew. He knew that she knew that he knew. He knew that she knew that he knew that her playing dumb was a useless gesture and so did she.

"I don't respond well to blackmail," she said darkly and held her tongue from saying too much more, lest she let something slip into a hidden recorder that could be construed as incriminating.

"You've nothing to fear from us. Believe it or not… we're the good guys," he said as though it mattered.

"Everyone is the hero of their own story, _gaijin,_" she said, emphasising the word 'foreigner' as strongly as she could.

The stranger simply smiled as though he took the word as a mark of pride.

"Perhaps," he countered, "But for now your little movement and my organisation are not enemies. Consider our silence as a down payment on future relations, should your faction become the controlling one within MBI."

He turned to leave and had almost taken his foot out of the door before he jammed it back in, remembering something at the last moment.

"One last thing," he said, "we have an… independent operative in the area. You'll know when you see him. We have a simple message, one I'm sure you can pass to him on our behalf,"

"I am not your messenger," hissed Takami, her patience with the stranger having long since evaporated.

The stranger cocked another irritating smile.

"Tell him the Brigadier sends his regards,"

* * *

Minaka blinked. He rubbed his eyes. Then he blinked again.

_I'm hallucinating,_ he thought, _I've been up all night in one of my manic creative upswings and I've just completely lost all perspective. Again._

He did a complete lap around the blue box and then stuck his head in. Then he walked into the dimly lit… room. A room in a box. A room in a box in a lab. In a building.

Then Minaka positively lost it. He threw his hands up in the air and cried out in triumph. He jumped up and down ecstatically and tore out of the box to return moments later with lighting equipment in tow. He hadn't been this excited… this _alive_ since the discovery of the Sekirei ship on Kamikura Island all those years ago…

The room was amazing. It had a central column surrounded by a control interface of some sort. Metal grating covered the floor immediately around it, followed by something more solid nearer the entrance. Further out lay passageways that he suspected lead off to other rooms.

Common sense said that this entire phenomenon was impossible. Minaka had long since thrown common sense to the wind. This was amazing. It was phenomenal. He could only begin to imagine the practical applications of fitting room-sized spaces into phone-box sized proportions. Cargo and shipping would be revolutionised forever… spaceflight alone would derive enormous benefits to say nothing of organisations that would adore the easily portable nature of pocket universes.

Even if he couldn't replicate the technology that forged the universe in a bottle that was the blue box the fact that there were all sorts of interesting and unusual objects within was already a massive boon. He didn't recognise half of what was inside and to Minaka that meant something new, something he could find use for, something that would make his hair stand on end in excitement.

"You! All of you!" he shouted to his assistants outside, "Get in here and start setting up the lighting equipment! Get me more people! We need to do a proper survey of the interior!"

His assistants gaped at him as though he was mad but he knew better. If they refused to obey his orders he could easily find new assistants. The more diligent ones were already hard at work dragging in wiring and lighting equipment, readying the main chamber as a base of operations for further exploration of the interior.

Despite his excitement Minaka also felt caution was necessary. Anyone who owned such a thing as this blue box would have to be a cunning individual... and certainly not human. He'd heard of theoretical papers from MIT about spatial re-engineering but nothing that even began to match the scale, the majesty and the inconceivability that was the blue box.

Whoever this Doctor was, Minaka's internal alarm bells were ringing at full volume now. He'd need to find out more about the Doctor. Fast.

* * *

The Doctor practically inhaled Miya's tea. Every cup left him wanting more. Whether it was from a desperate need for tea, the sheer exquisiteness of how it had been brewed or plain dehydration the Doctor didn't know for certain. All he knew was that he wanted more, and Miya was happy enough to oblige him, for now.

"And that," said the Doctor nonchalantly as he sipped his umpteenth cup of tea, "Is how time travel works!"

Miya shot him a glance as he fidgeted in the clothes she'd provided for him. He'd have much preferred to be wearing his usual attire instead of the loose fitting jeans and all too-tight top.

"Your explanation made no sense at all," said Miya with an amused smile.

"What? That was the children's version of how it works! Anyone can understand that!"

"And you still haven't figured out a way to repay me for the rent you owe me for yourself and Akitsu," said Miya, changing the subject.

The Doctor choked briefly on his tea.

"I… uh… well… if you'd let me pop off to the ATM I could pull some money out?" he said, stumbling over his own words.

Miya leaned in close and whispered softly, "Aliens do not have bank accounts. You'll not commit any crimes while you're under this roof."

"Then… how am I…" the Doctor trailed off as he realised his 'payment' had been worked out in advance.

"You can help me prepare breakfast," said Miya, "after that there are some parts of the house which need cleaning. A nice tall man like you can easily reach places I can't."

"I… you want… you want me doing _housework_?" asked the Doctor incredulously.

He, whom had saved the universe countless times, he, whom had saved lives, worlds and civilisations, he, whom had managed to set fire to Dalek empires using nothing more than paperclips and string. The Doctor, The Oncoming Storm, saviour of the Universe… was being reduced to _housework?_

"Those who do not help also do not eat," she said tersely.

The Doctor's stomach cast its vote audibly and with a start realised he was ravenous. He squirmed in his seat trying to find a way out of this situation. He could slink off, take his screwdriver with him and go his own way easily enough… but the fact that there were Sekirei in Tokyo and that there was some kind of exploitation of them compelled him to stay. Slavery and exploitation sat badly with him at the best of times.

Miya rose to start cooking breakfast followed closely by the Doctor. She'd just started cooking the rice when a newcomer stumbled sleepily into the kitchen.

"Landlady-dono, is breakfast ready yet?" asked Uzume as she rubbed her eyes.

"It would be ready sooner if you'd help," said Miya sweetly.

Uzume gave Miya a baleful look before casting a bleak and empty look towards the Doctor.

_Absolutely, positively, _NOT_ a morning person,_ thought the Doctor.

"Good morning! My names the Doctor and you are?"

"Oh. You're awake," said Uzume dully, still not fully awake.

WHACK!

"Ow! Landlady-dono! What was that for!" exclaimed Uzume, rubbing the back of her head where Miya's ladle had firmly connected.

"Being impolite towards guests will not be tolerated!" she said cheerfully, brandishing the ladle as though it could serve as a weapon equally as well as a cooking implement.

"Oh," said Uzume, trying to chase away the cobwebs of sleep that still cluttered her mind, "My name is Uzume. You said you were a Doctor? Doctor who?"

"Uh, just, the Doctor, thanks," said the Doctor.

"Doctor-san? What kind of a name is that?" asked Uzume.

WHACK!

"Ow!" cringed Uzume.

"Oh my, how the young forget their manners!" said Miya sweetly before levelling a death glare at Uzume, "Apologise."

"S-Sorry!" Uzume stammered without delay.

"Quite alright," said the Doctor.

A moment of awkward silence ensued between the three of them before a thump and a commotion occurred upstairs.

"Ah, it seems that Minato-san is awake," said Miya as she reached into a drawer and pulled out a rather large butcher's knife, "You two can handle breakfast while I go make sure nothing _improper_ is occurring."

The Doctor blinked as he heard her giggle to herself. Clearly she enjoyed intimidating people in her house a little too much.

"Breakfast," offered Uzume and attended to the pots.

The two worked on breakfast for Izumo House. Uzume lead the Doctor in the preparation, knowing how much to prepare for all the tenants that would be dining soon.

"So," said the Doctor, "How is she?"

"How is who?" asked Uzume as she concentrated on her cooking.

"Your ashikabi," he said.

"You… you know I'm…?"

"A Sekirei? With the way you smell you may as well be wearing a T-shirt saying 'Sekirei' on it," he said with a smile, "so how is she?"

"I… uh… she's fine, just not here at the moment,"

"Don't lie to me, Uzume-san, I know a strained empathic connection when I see one and your one is strained enough as it is."

"…what?" asked Uzume. It was entirely too early in the morning for her to put up with weirdness of this calibre.

"She's sick, isn't she?" he said in a low voice so nobody else could hear.

"I…" she started but stopped short before nodding guiltily.

She'd kept the fact that her ashikabi was sick from everyone else for so long… it was difficult admitting it to another person so openly, even if they had deduced it.

She noticed the Doctor sniffing as though he could smell something wrong. With a start Uzume turned to the breakfast they'd been preparing with alarm… to find nothing wrong.

"What are you sniffing at?" she asked.

"What? Oh, nothing," he said, "Listen, after breakfast, I may be able to help,"

"Help? Help how?" asked Uzume.

"…I'm the Doctor!" he said cheerfully before turning back to the pots and pans.

Musubi was the first one down the stairs. The smell of food had become all too much for her to resist with the fierce growling of her stomach driving her ever onward and into the living room.

She wasn't disappointed. The table was laden with breakfast. Miya sat at the head next to a strange man and Uzume sat opposite of him. All of them were talking quietly while waiting for the others.

"The food! It smells so good!" exclaimed Musubi.

The Doctor jumped at the sound of her voice in genuine surprise before a flicker of recognition crossed his face.

"Oh hello there!" he said genially, "My name's the Doctor! What's your name? Have we met before by any chance?"

Musubi looked at him but couldn't place him in her memories. She'd seen many scientists and doctors during her time in MBI before the Sekirei were released into Tokyo.

"I'm Musubi!" she announced happily, "I'm sorry but I don't think I've ever seen you before. You're Akitsu's ashikabi, aren't you?"

"Oh… um… errr…" said the Doctor uncomfortably.

The awkward moment was mercifully broken up by the arrival of Tsukiumi and Kusano also having been lured by the glorious smell of food.

"This… This isn't breakfast!" exclaimed Tsukiumi in surprise.

"It's a feast!" exclaimed Kusano before diving to her spot and launching her way into the food with zest and vigour, "Let's eat!"

As everyone started eating the Doctor noticed several empty spots, as well as the blonde Tsukiumi alternating her glare towards him when she thought he wasn't looking and upstairs otherwise. Between mouthfuls of delicious food he glanced at Musubi and tried to place her with the person he'd seen in his dream. She was the spitting image of Yume physically. Her demeanour though was that of a completely different person. Still… there was something eerily familiar about her, as though an echo of Yume resided within Musubi somehow.

It was as Tsukiumi was regarding him with another of her covert withering looks that the door to the living room slid open to reveal Akitsu.

"Doctor…" she trailed before hurling herself at him.

The Doctor barely had time to put his chopsticks down before she bowled into him, hugging him fiercely, crushing him into her breasts which he only just now noticed were quite capable of choking off his air supply with ease.

"Air!" he choked, "Need air!"

WHACK!

"Guests attempting to murder other guests will not be permitted to remain in Izumo house! Even if their choice of weapons is unusual" said Miya and nodded towards Akitsu's chest.

With reluctance Akitsu managed to loosen her death grip on the Doctor, allowing him a measure of oxygen.

The Doctor was surprised at her reaction. Everything he had seen of Akitsu thus far had suggested a persona that was either devoid of emotions or had them severely repressed. Her face betrayed not a hint of that emotion except for an inappropriate melancholy… he'd have hated to play poker against her. Her body language however… the fierceness of her hug, the way she'd pressed herself into him had spoken volumes of her concern for him.

WHACK!

"Ow! What was that for!" exclaimed the Doctor, rubbing his head where the wooden spoon had caved in his skull.

"You enjoyed that, and you were staring where you shouldn't have been for far too long," she said sweetly with a smile.

"What? I… I…" the Doctor struggled but found he had no defence that wouldn't have damaged Akitsu's self esteem.

He was guilty as charged.

* * *

"WHERE. IS. MINAKA!" shouted Takami at yet another of his useless assistants.

"I-I-In t-t-there!" cowered the assistant in perfectly justified terror, indicating the blue box.

With a snarl Takami stalked towards the blue box and kicked the door in with rage. She didn't miss a beat as she stormed inside, not caring in the slightest that it was larger on the inside, paying no heed to the flotilla of floodlights and lab assistants trying to make head or tails of the control interfaces and not even bothering to slow down as her quarry came into view capering and dancing with a joy she'd not seen for twenty years.

Older, wiser assistants knew what was coming and took cover, hiding behind panels, railings, or otherwise getting to a minimum safe distance and preferably a good deal further. There were few things as legendary within MBI as Minaka's madness, and that was Takami's rage when she had been denied her cigarettes.

"IDIOT!" she roared, bringing a clipboard down on his head hard enough to make a satisfying cracking sound.

"Ow! Takami-kun! Are you trying to quit smoking again?"

"SHUT UP!" she shouted and brought the clip board down on him again.

"Argh! What's this about!" he flailed as he tried to dodge being beaten to death with the clip board.

"What's this about?" she said quietly in a way that sent the experienced lab assistants fleeing abject terror, "What's this ABOUT!"

She didn't even bother to hit him with the clip board. She threw it at him, forcing him to dodge, then closed the distance and tried to throttle him.

"Using that Jinki the way you did! That's what this is about! Do you have any idea what could have happened? Are you even barely aware of the size and scope of the powers you're dealing with?"

"Takami-kun! I factored in everything! The possibility of a catastrophic failure was-"

"WAS NOT NEGLIGIBLE YOU DOLT!" she snapped and backhanded him across the face before taking several deep breaths to try and compose herself.

"But look at this place! The rewards justified the risks!" he exclaimed.

"Minaka. If anything had gone wrong with that Jinki it could have terminated all the Sekirei _at best._ Do you know how disastrously wrong things could have gone?"

"But they didn't!" he insisted.

She slapped him again without remorse.

"Seven point six billion," she said flatly.

"Seven point six billion what?" he asked.

She slapped him again.

"That's how many lives you could have killed you idiot!" she shouted.

"But Takami-kun! I'm trying to save lives, the Sekirei Plan-"

"Oh not this again!" she said putting her palm to her face.

"Takami!"

"No! Shut up! I've had enough of your visions, your metal spheres and saving the world with the Sekirei Plan. Shut up! Shut up! Shut up!" she shouted in frustration.

A moment of dreadful silence hung in the air while the two stared each other down. Frightened lab assistants dared not breathe lest the inaudible sound trigger a catastrophic reaction in the tense atmosphere.

"Are you finished?" said Minaka coldly.

"You had plans for today," said Takami bitterly, "Unless you intend to postpone phase two until a time of _your_ choosing."

"For someone who's been against this plan from the very start, Takami-kun, you have an odd way of keeping it on track."

Despite the fury boiling within her Takami considered her next words carefully. She had to keep her true motives covert until the moment was right.

"I am against this Minaka, yes. But many Sekirei are not. They would fight in your plan because they truly desire to and because they want to meet their fated. I'm helping you because it's what _they_ want. Besides," she said, trying to lighten the mood a little bit, "you're surrounded by sycophants and yes men like these cowards," she gestured towards the lab assistants who were keeping to a safe distance on the opposite end of the main chamber, "Someone has to stand by you and put you in your place every now and then. If not me, then who?"

"Is that so?" he said noncommittally before regarding her with a wry grin, "Ah Takami-kun, this reminds me why I fell in love with you in the first place."

"And incidents like this remind me of why we broke up," she countered expertly.

"True," he admitted, "Even so, Takami-kun, you're the only one who could say no to me. No matter how rich or how powerful I became, only you ever had the gall, the guts, the gusto to say no to the all powerful director of MBI."

"I'm honoured," she said sarcastically.

"No, Takami, I mean it," he said in a rare moment of complete and total honesty untainted by his ego, "Of all the idiots on the board, all the suck up lab assistants… you're the only one I trust completely."

He laid a hand on her shoulder in a gesture of camaraderie. Takami didn't know what to say to him. She didn't trust herself to speak without betraying herself and simply nodded towards him.

Minaka nodded in acceptance. This fight had been much like their relationship, mercurial, unpredictable and rapidly shifting. They'd spent as much time fighting as they had loving each other. They'd been happy once… happy to commit to an endless cycle of fighting, breaking up, making up and loving, again and again and again. Their children had changed the dynamics of that relationship. She'd wanted them to have a stable home, something she and Minaka couldn't give them together.

Though they'd worked together, the subsequent years apart had made them more friends than lovers. Minaka's strange visions and insanity as well as Takehito's death had driven a wedge between them. For the first time in all those intervening years she felt as though the gulf between them had closed a little… all it had taken was for that idiot to endanger the entire human race to do it.

"Alright! Pack it in for now!" shouted Minaka, "Recall the survey teams and tell Yasuyo's team to get out of that hot spring they found!"

Takami did a double take.

"They found a hot spring in this thing?" she exclaimed.

* * *

Karasuba sat at the edge of the balcony of the penthouse suite situated at the top of MBI tower enjoying a cup of green tea. The abode of the Discipline squad and its resident Ashikabi, Natsuo, was a lavish affair. Even so, Karasuba preferred few if any comforts beyond those that kept her as sharp as her swords.

"When is Natsuo-kun coming back from that meeting? He promised to have breakfast with us," complained Benitsubasa.

"Perhaps he got distracted by a secretaries'… assets…" giggled Haihane.

The stealth jab at Benitsubasa's lack of a developed chest hit the bull's eye.

"Th-That's not possible! Natsuo-kun loves me!" she shouted, her face reddening with embarrassment as the stealth insult struck the right nerve.

"Of course he does," said Haihane placatingly, "but he loves me more."

Karasuba rolled her eyes as the two launched into the same, tired, old and exhausted argument. There was a western expression for it… something about beating a horses corpse into the ground… she never had managed to get an accurate translation but it felt apt.

In her eyes they were nothing more than fools, blind, deluded fools. She was as above them as they were above the billions of idiots that populated the Earth. The way she saw it, there were two kinds of Sekirei, those that were slaves unto their Ashikabi's desires after winging and those that had the will to realise their own fate. All Sekirei fell into one category or the other and she classified herself as one of the latter. The junior members of the Discipline squad fell firmly into the former.

Natsuo didn't love them. He couldn't love them. He would never love them. The part of him that could love had died along with his lover, long ago. Now there was only a deep black hole of seething contempt for the world… a contempt that Karasuba shared. Though all members of the Discipline squad held a connection with Natsuo, Benitsubasa and Haihane shared only his surface feelings and thoughts. Natsuo liked Benitsubasa and Haihane as people, enjoyed their company, even had fun with them on occasion, but that was all.

Karasuba enjoyed a much deeper, more succinct relationship with her ashikabi. Even before her winging Karasuba had wanted to see the world burn to the ground before her. It had been her deepest desire for the longest time; the desire came as naturally to her as the desire for oxygen did for anyone else. Natsuo had shared such feelings… the pit of darkness that dwelled in his heart had long since ate away at any true sentimentality towards the world. That was the only reason she'd allowed herself to be winged by him… their desires had been coterminous. Natsuo was merely an instrument that allowed Karasuba to wield greater destructive power. Karasuba was Natsuo's instrument to see the world burn. They used each other and both knew it… and accepted what they were.

Natsuo glided in confidently, interrupting her thoughts and the squabbling junior members.

"Our contacts in UNIT have finally come through for us," he said magnanimously.

"Oh?" said Karasuba, "and how much bribery did it take this time?"

Natsuo cracked a false smile. Happy on the outside, still pining for his lost lover on the inside. If the façade were any more perfect she could have framed it.

"Not as much as you might think," he retorted, holding up a red folder, "They've provided us with information on our little fugitive, as well as information regarding a few of their agents that managed to slip through our security,"

He placed the folder down, opening it up to reveal documents, pictures, files upon files.

It was the photo's that held Karasuba's interest. She'd had her suspicions from the low quality CCTV footage caught at odd angles of the mystery man. The UNIT files however were high definition, crisp, and in colour.

"So… we meet again. Doctor," she whispered to herself.

* * *

"You said you could help my ashikabi," said Uzume as she passed yet another of the strange requests the Doctor was making.

The question unfortunately gained Akitsu's attention. Though she didn't turn away from doing the dishes to look at them Uzume could feel Akitsu's disapproving glare bore right round the Earth and slam back into her.

"I am helping!" claimed the Doctor.

"You call this helping?" she asked, trying to ignore the apparently jealous Akitsu's loud shuffling of the plates.

"Well, look at it this way. Good medicine is finding the right treatment for the right condition. All biology is basically chemistry. All medicine is finding the right catalyst to get the desired chemical reaction from the body's biology… and cooking," he said as he dumped a metric ton of soy sauce into the already over-boiled rice, "is basically another form of chemistry."

"That was a waste of a perfectly bad explanation," she said sarcastically.

The Doctor huffed and tried to find a simpler way of summing things up for her. Even after breakfast it seemed Uzume was not a morning person.

"Life is chemistry, medicine is chemistry, cooking is chemistry," he said, "Ergo, I am making medicine through the chemical process of cooking. Could you pass me the smoked cheese?"

She passed him the cheese, which he nonchalantly threw into the pot and stirred like mad as it melted. He'd already thrown in rice, carrots, potatoes, soy sauce, vinegar, honey, cheese, onions, three cups of tea, several prawns that Miya would in all likelihood miss in preparing dinner later tonight, a pound of sugar, a fistful of butter and a vile black substance he'd made her fetch from his coat called 'something-ite'… she hadn't quite caught what exactly the name of it was. She only knew of a substance like it from reality dare shows where they made people try to stomach the taste of it for money only to watch them fail horribly.

Whatever 'medicine' it was the Doctor was cooking it looked as likely to kill someone as it was to turn their stomach permanently off food. Right before it shrivelled up. Followed by exploding.

"Almost done!" he said, scooping up enough to fill a bowl before throwing it nonchalantly into the freezer.

"What's that supposed to accomplish?" asked Uzume.

"Hold on," said the Doctor before retrieving it after fully five seconds in sub-zero temperatures.

Strangely the bizarre concoction was rock solid… as though it had been in the freezer for hours rather than seconds. The part of Uzume's mind that was both awake and sane, realising that such a thing was utterly, utterly impossible decided it was time to book a holiday to a nice safe location. Like Botswana.

"And now the final stage," he said, tossing the bowl into the microwave, setting it on 'High' and then inputting a ludicrously large number on the timer.

"Now," said the Doctor, "Once that's done you'll have about an hour or two to get it to your Ashikabi."

"Or else?" she asked, too inured to being used to be gracious.

"Or else the universal anti-viral mixture will go bad and that lot of goop will become just plain useless goop. Goop. Goop. That's a word I hardly ever use. Goop. It sounds exactly like what it's describing. Goop. Goooop. Goop," he said, veering off tangentially.

"Universal anti-what now?" asked Uzume.

"Your ashikabi is sick with a virus. A universal anti-viral is an anti-viral that will kill any and all viruses it comes into contact with. All she has to do is ingest enough and she won't have to worry about that pesky virus of hers… ever again really," said the Doctor.

Uzume stared at this madman. She studied his face, bored her gaze into his eyes and tried to read his body language as best she could, searching for some trace of disingenuousness, some hint of falsehood or even a clue that he was using her somehow. She was so inured to being used… as a pawn in Minaka's Sekirei plan and as Higa's unwilling henchman.

She found none. He wasn't lying, as far as she could tell he honestly believed what he'd just told her. That made him either mad or a genius… or both. All Sekirei had met Minaka at one point or another. The Chairman of MBI had had a personal hand in most Sekirei's lives at some point… she knew what insanity and genius looked like… and the Doctor seemed to share those traits with him. They both had genius and madness in equal measure.

"How do I know this will work?" Uzume asked, "How do I know that this stuff won't kill my ashikabi?"

"Because if it doesn't work, she'll kill me," said the Doctor, pointing towards Miya.

"Oh my, someone's been making a mess in the kitchen," said Miya before regarding the Doctor, "I wonder who's going to clean up all this mess, hmmm?"

Uzume let off a nervous laugh. Miya was her usual scary self. Right down to threatening people into doing the right thing… and the Doctor was right; he would never survive tricking her into poisoning her ashikabi or feeding her false hope. Miya wouldn't allow it.

"I'll clean up the mess," offered Uzume before glancing at the timer on the microwave, estimating she'd have just enough time.

"Ah, that settles it then, you will be cleaning up in the roof, Doctor-kun," said Miya sweetly.

"The what?" asked the Doctor.

"The roof," said Miya, handing him a dustpan and a brush, "There are many cobwebs and spiders up there. I hope you don't mind doing this as part of your ongoing efforts to repay me properly for my hospitality," she said with a devious lilt.

"Oh no. Not at all," said the Doctor, trying his best to keep his complete and total lack of enthusiasm out of his voice.

"Excellent, then I can go do the shopping and restock what a certain tenant has greedily used, hmm?" she said before heading off.

The Doctor set off to bravely confront cobwebs, spiders and the worst enemy of all… dust. It irritated him to think just how easily Miya was manipulating him into doing menial chores. His instincts were screaming at him to get out there, to go straight to the source of this mess and fix it before hopping back into his TARDIS, which was still worryingly under lockdown, and jauntily taking off to somewhere interesting and new.

But something was compelling him to stay. Something important. Something serious. Something… he tried to put his finger on it. Tried to get a fix on whatever it was that was bothering him. It was close. Very close. Very very close. So close that he could probably reach out and touch it. Somewhere… above him. He started towards the stairs.

"Hmph!" snorted an irritated looking Tsukiumi before turning her back on the Doctor.

"Excuse me, Tsukiumi-san was it?" asked the Doctor, "Have I done something to offend you?"

Tsukiumi stopped in the middle of the hall.

"What makes you say that?" she asked irritably, not bothering to turn around.

"Well, at breakfast… you kept looking at me like I'd run over your cat," he said, getting straight to the point.

She turned her head to regard him with a cold calculated anger.

"Are you an idiot?" she asked witheringly.

"What?" asked the Doctor.

"Nevermind, it seems that you are," she said icily, "You want to know why I don't like you. Very well. It's the way you treat Akitsu-san,"

"The way I what?" he said, utterly perplexed.

"It's the way you treat her!" she snapped, "The way she looks at you, the way she acts… what she did for you when you couldn't fight for yourself! I might not have been here long but I know she loves you, even if she can't show it. But you… you act as though you're just dumping her here for us to take care of her. Like you're here until Miya-sama lets you leave and then you're gone," she turned around fully now and stalked right up to him, jabbing an accusatory finger into his chest, "I don't like it. I don't like you and I don't like the way you can disregard her feelings like that. Is it because you can't wing her? Is it because you're a pathetic excuse for a human being?" she accused.

"I…" he struggled.

She was right. Partially. He had only intended to bring her somewhere safe, to someone that could look after her. He couldn't… he wouldn't take on another companion. Not after what happened to Rose… to Martha… and especially not after what had happened to Donna. Everyone that got close to him got burned in one way or another. He didn't want that to happen again. He didn't want to inflict himself in that way on another person… it wasn't fair, and it wasn't right.

"It's me," he admitted succinctly, "But it's not what you think."

"Oh, this should be good," gloated Tsukiumi with arms crossed.

"Anyone who gets close to me… they get hurt. And I try. I try so hard to protect them. To keep them safe from harm. The last person… her name was Donna…" he choked on her name, trying to compose himself, "I had to do something terrible to her to save her life. And it was my fault. It was all my fault. So now I travel alone. I can't… I can't let anyone else get hurt that way. She's better off if she stays as far away from me as possible from now on."

The Doctor didn't wait for a response. He wanted to put the conversation behind him as fast as possible and mindless menial chores sounded perfect right now. He took off and up the stairs, taking them three at a time to get away from Tsukiumi, leaving her standing in the hallway to ponder his words.

* * *

Minato sat in Matsu's room hoping she hadn't dragged him in here for the sake of her nefarious 'experiments'.

"Mina-tan, I wanted to talk to you about a few things before you go down for breakfast with the others," she said softly.

Minato nodded despite the grumbling of his belly. The smell of food was intoxicating even through the walls of Matsu's hidden room.

"I managed to do some further digging on our new guests," she started.

"Akitsu-san and the stranger?" queried Minato.

"Yes. MBI has been drawing from their international resources to garner information about the man downstairs. It seems an organisation called UNIT may know something about him, though I haven't had a chance to fully review their files," she said, "but that's not the most interesting thing I found,"

Minato wasn't so sure. An international man of mystery had muddled his way into the Sekirei Plan and had found his way into Izumo house, a man that, if he was even partially responsible for the smell of food tormenting him, was almost certainly an exceptional cook.

"What did you find?" he asked hoping to get Matsu's briefing out of the way so he could join the others.

"As you know, Akitsu is a scrap number, a Sekirei that couldn't be adjusted and so was locked out of the Sekirei Plan," she explained.

"Yes, go on," said Minato.

"It turns out that may not have been the case. Takehito-sama had scheduled her for an adjustment the night he vanished,"

"What?" asked Minato in surprise.

"It gets more interesting," she said, "On that night there were several low-priority security breeches, all over-ridden and cancelled by Takehito-sama. The only thing we know for certain is that his blood was found inside his lab and that Akitsu wasn't adjusted. It also seems that he had recorded several voice messages, all of which were unrecoverable by the investigators that looked into his death."

"Why is all this important now Matsu-san? Isn't this all ancient history?"

Matsu adjusted her glasses before continuing.

"It's been established that scrap numbers cannot be adjusted. So why had Takehito-sama scheduled Akitsu-san for an adjustment? The only explanation that makes sense is that he'd found a way."

Minato thought on that. It made sense. But then, why had he vanished? Was it kidnapping? Or perhaps murder?

"Is there anyone that might have wanted to stop him?" he asked, "Someone that wouldn't want the scrap numbers to be fully fledged Sekirei?"

It was Matsu's turn to look thoughtful.

"It's possible…" she trailed, "Adjusting a Sekirei is a complex process. There are tradeoffs, pitfalls and more than a few mistakes that can be made. A Sekirei can be made powerful at the cost of their mental stability, imbued with rich potential at the cost of cognitive functions, or even given subtle powers at the price of certain compunctions. These are just gross oversimplifications however; it's a vastly complicated process that involves the genes, the mind and the body all at once. If Takehito-sama had developed a new process that allowed previously un-adjustable Sekirei to be adjusted, it would entail a new insight or previously undiscovered knowledge about Sekirei. If that were the case, all Sekirei would have to go in for a re-adjustment to ensure that their full potential could be realised."

"Wait, wait," said Minato, trying to wade through the long explanation, "When they adjusted you… they changed your mind, your body and your genes?"

"Gene expression, specifically, the right genes expressed in the right way can have a large impact on ones physiological well being. The mental adjustment was also necessary for many Sekirei considering the powers we possess. Can you imagine the damage a powerful, mentally unstable Sekirei could inflict?" she said.

Minato chewed on that. He'd seen his Sekirei in a fight and he knew how powerful they were. It was frightening to think that any Sekirei could turn their power on regular humans. Though he was reluctant he could see the wisdom in ensuring that any Sekirei MBI let loose were, for the most part, mentally stable and at the very least not psychotic. As for the physical adjustments… well, Minato wasn't about to complain about that. Not at all.

"Perhaps we should leave the past for now, Mina-tan, there are important events happening right this moment," she said.

"Events? What's happening?" asked Minato.

"MBI has been redeploying soldiers throughout the city," she explained, "They've also increased surveillance of Ashikabi that currently possess Sekirei. There's already a team watching Izumo House. This means the second phase of the Sekirei Plan will be starting soon."

"Second phase?" asked Minato curiously.

"Thus far we've been in phase one. Unwinged Sekirei are released into the city to meet their fated ones," she glanced at Minato and blushed, making him feel somewhat uncomfortable but warm at the same time, "The second Phase occurs when most of the Sekirei have been winged. From there, the capital is sealed off and Tokyo becomes a battleground."

Minato mulled over that point. Tokyo was to become a battleground? He wondered how much damage would be done… how many lives would be lost…

"Matsu-san... is there any way we can…" he trailed off, unsure of how exactly he could finish that sentence, "It's just that… I don't want to see anyone hurt. If what you say is true-"

Minato was interrupted by a piece of the ceiling falling into the cramped room with a clatter. A mans head with a shock of hair popped down from the cavernous depths above.

"Then a lot of people are going to get hurt!" cried out the Doctor triumphantly, finishing Minato's sentence.

"Kyaaaaa!" wailed Matsu in shock.

"Was it something I said?" asked the Doctor.

"Where… Where the hell did you come from?" cried Minato.

"Landlady-sama asked me to clean the roof. Actually, she ordered me to clean the roof before heading out to do the shopping. Asking implies I was given a choice. Found some neat stuff up here though," he said, non-chalantly tossing a crystal onto Matsu's futon.

"How… How did you find this?" hissed Matsu as she cradled the Jinki, her voice somewhere between shock and despair.

"Oh it was between the third and fourth rafters underneath the insulation inside a safe with a time delayed combination lock, easy to find really. Now if you really wanted that hidden you really should have picked a better hiding place, somewhere nobody would look. Like underneath the cushions on the sofa," rambled the Doctor.

"Wait… that voice…" said Matsu before throwing herself to her computers.

The Doctor craned his neck to see where she was from his position in the roof and whistled.

"Oh very impressive! I'm not a big fan of computers myself but I know a setup capable of hacking the Pentagon when I see it!" he commended.

"Who are you?" asked Minato, refusing to believe that someone this crazy could possibly exist, "and what is that?" he pointed at the crystal.

"Oh I'm sorry I'm usually much quicker to introduce myself. My name's-"

"The Doctor," finished Matsu, looking at him with wide eyes.

"Oi! That's my line!" claimed the Doctor, "Wait… you know who I am?"

"I'M YOUR BIGGEST FAN!" shouted Matsu loudly enough to be heard from Saturn before entering a fan girl meltdown.

"Oh god. Oh no. Oh god," groaned the Doctor.

_Worse than Daleks,_ he thought, _it's a fan!_


	10. Chapter 10

A/N

It's been over 365 days since the last chapter. Holy crap.

I know, it's been beyond too long since I last updated this. Fact of the matter is, life has been busy. I know I say that a lot but it really has. To give you an idea, here's a few keywords that describe my life for the last couple of months:

University  
Chainsaw at 3 AM  
Career  
Gun Shots  
Work  
Ex Girlfriend  
Nephews  
Rape (namely, thwarting some fuckers attempt on my Ex)  
Hospitalisation  
Stolen railway equipment.

And that's just the stuff going on in my _personal_ life. No, I'm not going into detail about it. Frankly, the less you guys know about the dirty little details the better.

In any case, here's the tenth instalment of Broken Birds. Enjoy.

* * *

If the Doctor could have found an army of angry Daleks to fight he would have jumped right into action without hesitation. As far as his luck went, no such army had presented itself.

Instead he'd found something infinitely _worse_… a _fan_. Someone that had, somehow, managed to track his movements, exchange information about him, obsess over his adventures and long for the day he'd walk into their lives.

It was annoying on multiple levels. Most people were just not suited to the level of utter bizarreness that the he was used to dealing with on a daily basis. Most people didn't have the stomach to face constant danger, to say nothing of the physical fitness required for a life of constant running. Then there were the fans that due to their unfortunate enthusiasm inevitably got in his way or ended up in the wrong place at the wrong time resulting in, at the very least, mild cases of death.

Fans were in a way their own worst enemy. Their belief in him, their faith in his abilities was so often their undoing. He may have been brilliant but he wasn't limitless… at the end of the day he couldn't protect everyone all the time. Some were inevitably lost and for that he'd come to loathe the enormous faith that fans invested in him. He neither deserved nor wanted it.

The Doctor peeked between the fingers of the face-palm that had occurred the moment he realised he was dealing with a fan. Matsu was still swooning over the prospect of having met her idol while Minato was alternating a bewildered glance between the two.

"Who… who did you say you were?" asked Minato.

"I'm the Doctor!" he said, perking up slightly in one of his practically trademarked mood swings.

"Doctor who?" asked Minato.

The Doctor frowned. Was_ everyone_ in this house going to ask that?

"Just… the Doctor," he said, trying to keep the annoyance out of his voice, "What's your name by the way?"

"M-Minato… are you going to stay up there?" asked Minato.

"Why? Does it bother you that I'm in the roof?" replied the Doctor.

"Yes… a little,"

The Doctor shrugged and squirmed his way through the hole he'd made in the roof and landed softly on the floor. He dusted himself off as Matsu, finally recovered from her initial reaction regarded the Doctor with eyes as wide as saucers.

"So, um…" said Minato awkwardly, "How did you come to know Doctor-san?" asked Minato.

"It all started a few years ago, Mina-tan," she explained, "A researcher at MBI gave me an old DVD of his,"

"DVD?" asked Minato.

"It's what came before blue rays," explained the Doctor.

"While I was watching the DVD, I discovered an Easter egg… sort of a bonus feature hidden in one of the menus. A garbled video started to play," she pointed to the Doctor, "a video with his voice on it. He spoke as though he was speaking one half of a conversation."

"Oh I remember that!" exclaimed the Doctor, "But why didn't you recognise my face?"

"The video was garbled," explained Matsu, "Only the audio really worked… I'd heard that there were several other DVD's that had the same hidden Easter egg but they were very rare and hard to find and the eggs don't show up on the blue ray releases either."

"Ah the DVD," lamented the Doctor, "Gone the way of betamax already."

"…Beta? What?" asked Minato.

"…never mind," muttered the Doctor.

"After that I did as much research as I could," she continued, "Most of the information was locked up tight, I still can't get to it… but I know this much. Doctor-san is an alien time traveller who has saved humanity more times than can be counted. In short… he is amazing!"

_This feeling,_ thought Minato, A_m I jealous of the way she looks up to the Doctor?_

Matsu seemed to have an insight into the way her Ashikabi was feeling. She adjusted her glasses with one hand and reached out to reassuringly squeeze Minato's hand with the other. It was enough for him. While she may have admired this Doctor the same way one might admire their favourite idol or voice actor, Minato was after all still her Ashikabi and still the one that she loved.

"So, you're a time traveller?" asked Minato.

"Exactamundo!" exclaimed the Doctor, seizing on an opportunity to use the word.

"I don't suppose you could tell me if I get into Tokyo University next year?" he asked.

"Spot of bother, actually," said the Doctor, scratching his head nervously, "see, my time machine was sort of… stolen."

"Again?" asked Matsu.

"Again?" asked the Doctor, bewildered.

Matsu pulled out a ratty old t-shirt with faded but otherwise bold lettering in both kanji and surprisingly well translated English.

THE ANGELS HAVE THE PHONE BOX

"Ah, of course," said the Doctor. He'd forgotten that those egg forums had made a T-shirt after all.

"I take it that's why MBI wants to get their hands on you," mused Matsu, "They have your time machine, but they must know that you're dangerous even without it."

"Dangerous?" asked Minato nervously.

"Mina-tan," said Matsu reassuringly, "this man has saved the world many times in the past… he's only dangerous to those who would endanger the world."

"Speaking of endangering the world…" said the Doctor, "perhaps you could explain to me… what are the Sekirei doing here?"

"Eh?" asked Matsu, not understanding the question.

"The Sekirei. What are they doing here? In Tokyo? In the year 2020?"

"What?" asked Minato, "You know about the Sekirei?"

The Doctor nodded sagely.

"Would you like to hear the story?" asked the Doctor.

Minato and Matsu exchanged glances before turning back to the Doctor and nodded in unison.

The Doctor took a deep breath. Most of what he knew was hearsay from long before the Time War… but as the last of the Time Lords he was the only surviving authority from those times. They had a right to know.

"It all started a long time ago…"

* * *

Takami, unable to handle her nerves, finally lit up her first smoke for the day. As the nicotine rushed into her system her mind started to relax and process information in a more reliable manner.

The Doctor. A name, a title, an omen. She'd had a chance to skim the files on that man… the files that Minaka had managed to blackmail out of some secret UNIT vault. She knew enough to know that Minaka had made a terrible, terrible mistake. She knew enough to know that the Doctor had had something to do with Harriet Jones' downfall, the thwarting of multiple alien invasions during the last few decades and almost certainly possessed the capability of time travel. In all, he was a fearsome man that she had absolutely no intention of getting on the bad side of.

Takami grimaced as Minaka went through the rounds of announcing the second phase of the Sekirei Plan. The idiot was being a grandstanding buffoon again. She both loved and hated him when he did that in equal measure. It was a personality quirk that had first attracted her to him, the fact that he could absolutely and confidently make the most ludicrous claims seem almost plausible…

Still. He'd effectively thrown down against the Doctor. The psych profile UNIT had built clearly indicated that there was a 100% likelihood of a negative response towards exploitation of the nature that MBI was in the habit of towards Sekirei. If the Doctor moved against Minaka, Minaka would rally all of MBI against him, Takami included. The idiot would doom her just as surely as he had doomed himself.

Perhaps if the Doctor hadn't shown up in some imaginary parallel world she may have held off on her planned coup, at least until a later stage of the Sekirei Plan where she would be able to leverage more power and ensure success. She had always been against the Sekirei Plan… even so it was no guarantee that whatever fallout generated from Minaka's downfall wouldn't blow back and affect her as well. Takami was not stupid by any measure; she had always considered survival to be the noblest form of selfishness and was already thinking of ways to turn the tables both to her advantage and her survival.

Whether she could turn the Doctor into an ally or not her actions would have to be the same regardless. She pulled out her phone and dialled a number. After several rings and a soft click, it automatically transferred to a scrambled line she'd set up especially for this one phone call… even then she wasn't taking any chances.

"Bad Wolf is a go," she said, hanging up almost nonchalantly.

She stabbed out her cigarette in a nearby ashtray and eyed the rest of the packet hungrily for more precious nicotine.

It wasn't every day she started a corporate revolt.

* * *

Akitsu idly dried the dishes she had been washing earlier. The Doctor had been upstairs for long enough to start worrying her, though her face would never betray such worry with its look of eternal melancholy.

She lowered the dish onto the bench and reached over to grab another dish from the drying rack when she paused in thought.

_What is he to me?_ She thought, _I cannot be winged, so he cannot be my Ashikabi. I am a scrap number, a waste of a Sekirei. He would never want me. Why…_

Her mind trailed off as she remembered his kindness. The way he had tried to find her a place to stay, how he'd bought her clothes, spoke with her as a person and had vowed to help… for her?

She touched the Sekirei crest emblazoned on her forehead. Its position, prominent and clear to Ashikabi and Sekirei alike, showed her to be a scrap number. For her it was a mark of shame, a singular symbol of all her failures. It had set her apart, made her different. Though she had always preferred solitude even among other Sekirei she had always sensed the isolation from her peers, the way conversations would just die off when she entered a room, how she would always eat alone at tables and how she could go entire days without having to utter a single word to anyone.

"_Karasuba-sama!_" exclaimed Musubi from outside, breaking Akitsu's wandering thoughts.

Her eyes shot up. Sure enough, Number 04, Karasuba, stood outside of Izumo House… and she'd just been sprayed with water by Musubi.

Akitsu dropped the slick dish, numbly allowing it to fall and shatter on the floor. Her arms trembled slightly… she could feel her heart thundering in her chest as something inside her… a feeling that only ever arose when it came time to fight or to flee. She'd never understood that feeling and she'd never allowed it to bother her until now. What had changed? Why was this feeling affecting now of all times?

The Black Sekirei exchanged a few words with Musubi before starting towards the door, but not before casting a wary glance directly at Akitsu.

_She's going to kill me._ The thought came unbidden to her mind.

Something came unstuck in Akitsu. The crest emblazoned on her forehead became painfully cold. Akitsu ran from the kitchen and into one of the rooms downstairs. She cast about in an emotionless panic, looking for a place to hide, a dark place to bury herself and never come out from. Common sense and rationality would tell her that it would do no good. That the Black Sekirei would find her and kill her if she chose to hide herself within Izumo House… but both had long since fled.

She all but threw herself into a dark and stuffy closet, pulled a futon over her head and curled up as tightly as she could manage, trying to stay silent as the Black Sekirei entered Izumo House. She could hear her footsteps; hear the soft murmur of her voice.

_Terror, _her mind supplied, _this feeling is called terror._

Akitsu was too swept up to realise that she was _feeling_ something for the first time that she could remember… and too swept up to realise that a tide of cloying calm was trying to drown that terror. All she could do was whimper and hope that Karasuba didn't find her.

"Is someone here?" asked a voice from inside the room, causing Akitsu's terror to redouble.

The door opened up, causing Akitsu to shrink back into the corner, to try to bury herself into the wall and floor.

"Aki-Onee-chan?" said the diminutive Kusano.

"No… No…" quivered Akitsu, unable to clamp down on her terror.

Kusano's eyes opened wide as she recognised the look on Akitsu's face. She popped into the closet and closed the door behind her.

"It's alright," said Kuu as she inched slowly towards Akitsu, "Kuu comes here sometimes when she's sad or afraid or wants to be alone,"

Kusano carefully dodged mentioning her Ashikabi. She didn't want to risk upsetting Akitsu again as she had before. Though she was young she was also precocious at times.

"Aki-chan is afraid?" asked Kuu.

Akitsu nodded as tears started to pool in her eyes and stream down her face.

"It's alright, Kuu is here," she said, closing into hugging distance and curling up with Akitsu in an embrace.

Akitsu automatically returned it. Just the physical presence of another person seemed to calm the roiling sea of terror she was drowning in… if only a little.

"It'll be alright," said Kuu.

Akitsu sobbed softly, caught between raging terror and cloying calm.

* * *

Uzume glared at the bowl of warm muck, she lifted her gaze and regarded her Ashikabi, and then returned her glare with redoubled irritation back towards the bowl of muck.

She was about to reconsider the whole idea of trying to feed the muck to Chiho when she noticed her Ashikabi smiling towards her warmly.

"So, you tried cooking again?" asked Chiho softly.

"I… ehehe, well…" said Uzume uncomfortably while nervously rubbing the back of her head.

The last time Uzume had cooked anything for Chiho the experience had left her unable to taste anything for a week. Uzume had vowed never to cook for her again and had taken up cosplaying instead, which had turned out for the best. Uzume was certain that Chiho remembered the last time as clearly as she did. Even so, Chiho was willing to try what she thought was her cooking.

"Quickly," whispered Chiho conspiratorially, "Before the doctors' notice and try to stop you,"

Chiho sat up in bed and took the bowl that Uzume offered her. After spending a moment adjusting to get comfortable, she managed to pick up a spoonful of the muck the Doctor had created and hesitantly held it before her. Before Uzume could begin to doubt whether she'd try it, Chiho brought the spoon to her lips and scoffed the food. She chewed experimentally before her eyes widened.

"This… this food…" she said softly, "This is delicious!" she exclaimed before she began devouring the bowls contents.

Uzume relaxed somewhat. The Doctor may have used a mess of odd ingredients but apparently whatever it was he'd concocted had been enough to reawaken Chiho's long lost appetite… she'd never seen her Ashikabi eat so ravenously.

Before either of them knew it Chiho had cleaned the bowl completely, even going so far as to try her best to lick it clean without even the pretence of manners.

"Uzume-chan! You've improved your cooking a lot!" exclaimed Chiho, "I… sort of doubted you when I looked at it… but the smell…"

Chiho was smiling radiantly. She had vibrant colour in her cheeks and face for the first time that Uzume had seen her. She'd always thought that her Ashikabi was beautiful, but nevermore than at this moment. Blushing, she leaned forward to kiss her…

"Ahem!" interrupted Kakizaki as he stood in the doorway.

Chiho and Uzume drew apart from their abortive kiss, both of them blushing furiously at having been caught by the unwelcome interloper.

"Uzume-san? A word if you please," said Kakizaki.

"Uzume? Who is this person?" asked Chiho curiously.

"Ah, one of the specialists," lied Uzume, "I'll just be a few minutes," she said before leaving her Ashikabi with a smile that was only partly forced.

Uzume passed a nurse on the way in to check on Chiho's condition. The two shared a brief look before the nurse had to suppress a smile. Chiho and Uzume had been a hot topic amongst the nurses in the hospital, from those that who quietly disapproved of their 'forbidden love' to those that tried to give Uzume and Chiho romantic pointers and tried to push their relationship to the 'next level'.

As soon as Uzume had shut the door behind her, she fixed Kakizaki a withering glare.

"What." She stated flatly.

"Is that any way to address the representative of one whom so graciously holds the life of your ashikabi in the balance?" he teased, "Come now Uzume-chan, I thought we'd built a strong working relationship with one another. It would be shameful to allow the breakdown of our mutually beneficial partnership to endanger the life of someone so precious…"

Uzume took a deep breath and tried to drain the seething anger that built up every time that sneering bastard spoke. Whether she liked it or not, Kakizaki worked for Higa, and Higa owned the hospital. If she pissed off either of them, Chiho's life was forfeit. She had to grovel… for now.

"I apologise," Uzume forced herself to say in as pleasant a tone as she could muster, "What is it that Higa-sama requires of me now?"

"We have a new target for you to find and eliminate. Here are her files," he said, passing the necessary information on to her, "Please dispatch her for us as efficiently as you have your prior targets. You are an extremely valuable asset for Higa-sama."

Uzume glanced at the information she'd given him. A picture of an innocent and nervous looking Sekirei confronted her. Number 95, Kuno. Ranked quiet low in terms of power… she would be easy prey to almost any Sekirei she'd come across.

"Fine, I'll do it. As long as my Ashikabi is looked after," grumbled Uzume.

"See that you do," said Kakizaki before leaving.

Uzume leaned against a wall and thought. She hated this. She hated being used in this fashion. She hated going against her principles. She hated dirtying herself to keep the hands of her Ashikabi clean. But if it meant that she could live… if it meant that she could get the treatment she needed then she'd do it. Sekirei lived their lives by and for their Ashikabi. If she had to she'd move heaven and Earth for her Chiho.

The clicking of Chiho's door broke Uzume's train of thought as the nurse softly padded towards her.

"I wanted to let you know," said the nurse, "Your friend, she's sleeping right now… but she's looking quite good,"

"She is?" asked Uzume, feigning some degree of ignorance for Chiho's apparent turn for the better.

"More than good," said the nurse with a smile, "In fact, I haven't seen her this strong in years…. she may have gone into remission. We'll need tests to confirm that, I'm going to get the paperwork ready once I get back to the office."

* * *

"Mu-chan," said Karasuba relaxedly as she casually dried off in front of Musubi, "You know what I came here, right?"

"Eh?" asked Musubi. As she looked on vacantly, she noticed the Sekirei Crest at the base of Karasuba's neck, "Ah! The Sekirei Mark! You were winged Karasuba? I'm so happy for you!"

Karasuba chuckled softly. Musubi was endearingly air-headed at times.

"It's about that promise we made, do you remember?" asked Karasuba.

Musubi took the time to recall all the times that Karasuba had spent time mentoring her prior to her release. After a few moments, the pertinent memory sifted through.

"Ah! The promise!" exclaimed Musubi.

"Yes, that," murmured Karasuba.

She took a deep breath. It had to be said sooner or later.

"I'm sorry, Mu-chan. Before you and I can be the last two Sekirei standing, there is something I must do."

"…eh?" queried Musubi with a curious tilt of her head.

It wasn't like Karasuba to back down from a fight or the promise of bloodshed in her experience. Karasuba was the kind of Sekirei that had been born to fight with all her heart her mind and her body.

She was an inspiration for Musubi. That pure will to fight with everything she had gave rise to her own gung ho attitude to fighting. But the emptiness she sensed in her mentor… the hardness of her heart was also an inspiration. An inspiration to show her mentor the power of love, to show her that a Sekirei that fought with all her heart and body and soul could be far more powerful if they were capable of loving others.

"You have to grow stronger," said Karasuba, "Much stronger. Much, much, _much,_ stronger!" she continued with a rising manic bloodlust.

Taking a few breaths to calm herself, Karasuba laid a hand on each of Musubi's shoulders before leaning in.

"I have someone to kill," she whispered with reverent softness, as though she were speaking of a forbidden lover, "someone I've been waiting a very long time for. Sorry, Mu-chan."

With her business done, Karasuba turned to leave.

* * *

Akitsu stood on a vast landscape of barren ice. Overhead, grey clouds scudded by at impossible speeds, and as the wind swept by carrying with it ice and snow the cold, the dreadful cold seeped into her bones. She spread out her arms and with the barest function of her will, called for the ice to rise up to her command.

And rise it did. Blocks of ice rose up from the tightly packed ice, forming walls to shelter her from the cold. A ceiling formed on its own accord, sheltering her at last from the arctic blasts that had cut to the bone.

The walls soon began to take on details, carving into themselves patterns, doorways and intricate works of art. Furniture grew out of the floor itself, shaping themselves into chairs and tables. From the roof grew delicate chandeliers of ice. Everything save for Akitsu herself was ice.

When at last Akitsu felt the work was complete, she strolled forth to explore her new realm. With every step she became more and more convinced that she was the sole ruler of her domain, that none could challenge her sovereignty.

She paused as she approached a blank wall and, with the barest hint of concentration, commanded the wall of ice to smooth itself until a mirror-like surface of ice reflected back at her.

Her sandy blonde hair was covered in a delicate frost that refracted the light into a kaleidoscope of colour. Her head was encircled by a regal crown of ice and draped over her shoulders was a diaphanous gown of frost woven together in a way that only her supreme control over ice could ever allow. Most striking of all to her was the lack of the Sekirei crest, her mark of shame, emblazoned on her forehead.

She turned away from the mirror and continued to wander through her icy domain, passing through hallways, great dining halls festooned with feasts of frost, chambers that would be considered opulent, grand and extravagant by even the most spoiled and jaded, winding her way through palatial extravagance undreamt of by even the most ambitious and unscrupulous royal.

Finally she came to the heart of her domain. Vaulted ceilings of ice stretched up to a height sufficient to warrant the passage of giants. Between struts and various random points, ribbons of ice were strung gently reflecting and refracting light in a manner precisely calculated to shine brightest upon the very centre of power within any palace.

Before she took a single step inside, however, her attention was seized by the dark shape that sat in _her throne._

Anger flared within Akitsu.

_How dare they!_ She thought, _How dare they affront my sovereignty!_

Without heed or caution, Akitsu's Sekirei combat instincts drove her forward at breakneck speed, her blood raging with cold fury at the affront to her supreme authority.

And yet, the more she ran the more stubbornly the throne seemed to maintain its distance from her. The dark shape seemed to taunt her both with its mere existence and the intransigence of its distance. The affront only served to force Akitsu to redouble her efforts. All her will was focused on reaching the dark shape and deposing the dark harpy from her rightful throne. She ran with complete and total reckless abandon, gouging holes in the icy floor with the power of her footfalls.

Finally her legs gave out from under her, unable to continue meeting her demands that they run faster, further, _faster_. She tumbled face first into the ice, shattering her crown and scraping her face brutally across the floor until she came to a pitiful stop. She lay there, spent, for several minutes before she started to pick herself up. As she did, she saw for the first time that she had reached her goal.

The pedestal of the throne lay before her. As she drew her eyes upwards, she saw a block of ice before the throne… and within that block of ice was… someone.

She peered into the block of ice, noticing slender legs, a black and white kimono, the parting on the chest revealing a generous amount of cleavage, and finally her own face.

Akitsu drew back instinctively. What was she doing inside a block of ice? How could this be? Apprehensively she looked closely and saw that the Sekirei Crest was emblazoned upon her frozen others forehead as she stared off into space.

Akitsu blinked in confusion, looking at herself, she didn't quite know what to make of what she was seeing. And then she saw that her frozen other was now looking _directly at her. _

Akitsu drew back with a sharp breath. She mentally commanded the ice to shatter and release her other… but it refused to obey. She issued the command again and again, each time more strident than the last. The most the block of ice would do to yield to her authority was to clear up a bit to offer her a better view of her other.

There was a look of panic on her face, raw and primal. The way her body was encased in the ice, it looked as though her other had either tried to usurp the throne… or flee it. It took only one look into her other's eyes to realise that something was _dreadfully_ wrong.

All pretence of royalty and sovereignty had fled her mind. The palace of ice, once grand and beautiful to her now felt oppressive and dark. The look of her other now made sense to her. She had to get out of here. She had to _run. _She turned to do precisely that but found her feet were held fast. She turned to see what held to her to find that solid ice now encased her feet entirely.

Akitsu commanded the ice to retreat, to set her free. Instead it grew faster, twirling about her legs and rapidly encasing her waist in frigid cold and cloying calm. It was like struggling in quicksand. Every time she struggled she only compelled the ice to grow faster, the cold to sink in more deeply, and the calm… that unnatural calm…

Even doing nothing was only a delaying tactic. The ice was slowly and inexorably growing to encase her as it had her other. But as the ice grew to encompass her shoulders and pin her arms in a decidedly unnatural pose, it failed to matter to her any more. Nothing mattered to her anymore. There was no longer any fear, no terror, no love, no joy, no apprehension, nor confidence. There was nothing but cold and ice… and the calm… the deadening calm that swallowed her heart.

Akitsu locked eyes with her frozen other. It carried the look of fear as it always had… but now a flash of pity seemed to creep in. Before the ice encased Akitsu in its entirety, she caught a glimpse of reflected eyes… eyes that held no fear… eyes that no longer _cared._

* * *

"It all began a long time ago in a galaxy far far away," said the Doctor.

"That's Star Wars," cut off Matsu.

"Is it? Hmm. I suppose it is. Okay, Once upon a time-"

"That's any number of fairy tales," cut off Minato.

"What? Someone paid attention to his English lessons I see. Okay, look. A long time ago there was a race of hyper intelligent pan-dimensional beings-"

"Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy," harmonised Matsu and Minato.

"Actually, Doug stole that one from me. He stole a lot from me actually. I really should have insisted on getting credit-" trailed off the Doctor.

"Doctor…" interrupted Matsu impatiently.

"Oh, right, of course!" exclaimed the Doctor.

Just as he was about to launch into lecture mode…

_RRRRRRRRRRRIIIIIINNNNGGGG!_

All three people in the room sighed and then glared at the offending cell phone as it insistently rung.

"Sorry, I have to take this," said Minato as he flipped his clamshell phone open.

"_Minato, dear!"_ said a saccharine voice from the other end.

"M-Mother!" exclaimed Minato before shooting the others a pained expression.

Matsu leaned in closer to the Doctor.

"Perhaps you could tell me that story, Doctor-san. I have a feeling Mina-tan is going to be on the phone for a while," she whispered conspiratorially.

* * *

"_Minato, you never call me anymore! Are you afraid I'll cut your allowance in half again?"_ teased Takami.

"It's not like that mum. I've just been busy with my studies and part time work!"

"_But not too busy to get a girlfriend?"_ she jabbed.

Minato practically choked on his own tongue.

"Mum! How did you-!"

"_Yukari told me about her a few days ago! Really! If I'd known you had a girlfriend I might not have cut your allowance that much!"_

Minato silently promised himself never to trust Yukari with sensitive information ever again.

"_Is she there Minato? I'd like to have a word with my future daughter in law! I expect to see _many _grand children from her and you to make up for your recent _failures_!"_

"Mum!" shouted Minato blushing beet red as he cast about looking for an escape from the painful conversation.

Matsu and the Doctor were whispering about something or other, while Musubi was outside watering the garden last he checked. The last thing he was going to do was to put any one of his Sekirei on the phone with his mother. That was a disaster waiting to happen and Minato wanted none of that.

"_Hurry up and put my daughter in law on the phone! We need to decide what your grandchildren's names will be!"_

"Uh, listen, mum, now's not a good time-"

"_Oh I see, did I interrupt you while you were busy making them?"_

"No, that's not it!"

"_You haven't even taken her 'maiden purity' yet? Minato! I'll die of old age before I get to see my grand children at this rate! Think of your poor old mother!"_

"Mum, I can't hear you, the signal is breaking up!" exclaimed Minato, hoping that the old ruse would work.

"_Besides, your sister already has a boyfriend!"_ continued Takami, not even giving Minato's ruse the time of day.

"What!" exclaimed Minato, ruse forgotten.

"_A boyfriend!"_ exclaimed Takami, _"He's a bit short but he's such a beautiful boy!"_

Minato went cold inside for three reasons. Firstly, that his mother knew Yukari beat him out on getting into university; secondly, she also managed to find a boyfriend in less than a month after coming to Tokyo. Third, whoever her boyfriend was, he had to have the… unique personality necessary to handle his little sister and that either meant someone formidable or someone to be walked all over.

"_Anyway, I need to call your sister up and tell her you're busy working on the grand children!"_

"Wait, mum, how do you know Yukari has a boyfriend if you haven't talked to her yet?" asked Minato, knowing for a fact that Yukari wouldn't announce that she had a boyfriend to their mother over the phone.

"_It's on her FacePlace,"_ said Takami nonchalantly, _"Really, she should be more careful what she puts up there if she doesn't want her dear mother to find out!"_

Minato suddenly felt vindicated and relieved that he had never once signed up for FacePlace or any other kind of social networking. Being part of MBI's Ashikabi Networking System was bad enough, and involuntary.

"_Anyway, remember to eat lots of vegetables and clean behind your ears!"_ enthused Takami.

"Yes mum," droned Minato with practiced apathy.

"_And wash down there too! Especially since you won't be using protection to make me my grand children! Bye Minato!"_ she sniped before hanging up.

"Ah! Wait, Mum!" fumbled Minato before glaring exasperatedly at his phone.

* * *

Matsu gaped as the Doctor finally finished his story.

"You can't be serious!" she hissed as Minato endured his mother's badgering over the phone, "We can't tell Mina-tan that!"

"What do you propose instead? That we lie?" asked the Doctor.

"Yes!" exclaimed Matsu before covering up her lips, "Yes," she continued whispering, "If Mina-tan knew the truth… it would break his heart."

"You've nothing to be ashamed of," said the Doctor reassuringly, "And I promise I'll help in any way that I can once this is all over,"

"Thank you," whispered Matsu.

"Ahhh!" groused Minato in frustration, "Sorry about that. Mum was being a troll again!"

"I like her already!" grinned the Doctor as he surreptitiously grabbed the Jinki he'd casually tossed about earlier and passed it to her.

"Ah, Doctor-san, I've been meaning to ask, what exactly is that?"

"Well…" the Doctor drew out, mentally patting himself on the back for using the Jinki to distract Minato from the prior subject at hand, "If I had to put in basic terms… I'd say that it's a pan-dimensional hyper-omni-tool!"

"What?" asked Minato.

"It's like a multi-tool. Only it can work in seventeen dimensions. Very useful too depending on how you use it. 'Course, as it is now, it's just some nice bauble."

"Why is that?" asked Matsu.

"Well, it's got a security feature. You need eight of them for it to work properly, and it requires an authorised user. Good thing too since one wrong move and… uh…"

"And what? What happens if you 'make a wrong move'?" asked Minato.

"Um…" said the Doctor, scratching his head as he wanted to avoid the question entirely if he could, "Slice the planet in half?" he ventured, "Make the sun explode…" he continued, running down the list, "Turn every cat into a catgirl and uh, probably kill a lot of people too."

"What!" exclaimed Minato, "W-w-what is it doing here then?"

The Doctor shot a glance at Matsu. Following his gaze, Minato looked towards his Sekirei.

"Matsu-san," began Minato, "What is that doing here?"

Matsu fidgeted, not wanting to give Minato information he might not like.

"Well…" said Matsu, feeling the pressure from the gazes the Doctor and her Ashikabi were giving her, "I sort of… stole it MBI."

"EH!" cried Minato.

The Doctor broke into a manic grin of appreciation for her audacity.

"That's why I've been hiding in here! If I were to show my face outside MBI would kill me!"

"I take it that MBI have the remaining seven Jinki?" queried the Doctor.

Matsu nodded.

"Minato, what do you think of the Sekirei Plan?" asked the Doctor, switching subjects.

"The Sekirei Plan? Um… I'd rather not see anyone hurt," he answered.

"If there were a way to stop it, to stop this madness before it could go too far, would you do it?" asked the Doctor.

"If I could stop the Sekirei Plan…" muttered Minato before he realised what he'd said.

Matsu positively glowed with admiration for the Doctor as she rapidly connected the dots.

"You have a plan!" she exclaimed.

"I have a plan," he confirmed.

* * *

Kazehana gulped down yet more expensive sake as she enjoyed the wind and the view from one of Tokyo's many high rise construction sites. No matter how much sake she tried to drown her broken heart in, it never seemed to wash away the stain of rejection.

"Was I not good enough for you?" she wondered despondently.

She knew the flaw was not in her looks. With her long flowing black hair and smooth skin clad in a scandalously short and tight purple dress that showed off her breasts she turned more than her fair share of interested onlookers. She'd even caused a few accidents much to her delight.

It was because of her heartbreak that she had not been searching for an Ashikabi amongst the denizens of Tokyo. She had neither the need nor the desire for one, not when she had had her heart so thoroughly shattered.

A gust of wind blew as she drew more sustenance from the bottle of sake. The wind was her element; it bent to her power as a Sekirei as it would any other elementalist type. Unlike the others, though, she found that the wind tended to have its own playful agenda. At times, if she 'listened' carefully, she would gain a sense of things happening far away. It had served her well in avoiding the more unsavoury ashikabi that had forced their way into power.

It was as her phone rang that the wind gave her the sense of importance. Instead of ignoring for further sake, as would be her custom, she flipped it open to see a text had arrived.

_Izumo House._ Read the message, short and to the point, sender unknown.

Kazehana frowned. She hadn't been along to see Miya for some time… she doubted that old housewife, though she would never dare say such a thing to Miya, would let her have any fun if she were to just drop by.

If she could get just a little bit more drunk she might be able to doze off even at this height. She pulled the sake up to her lips only to find it empty. She pulled the bottle at a higher angle to make sure, before finally looking straight down the neck to find it completely drained.

"Well," said Kazehana as she staggered to her feet precariously drunk atop a very high skyscraper construction site, "I guess I could give old Miya a visit after all!"

Her mind made up, she leapt off the construction site as only a Sekirei could.

* * *

"Yo, Natsuo," said Karasuba casually as she swung herself over the door and into his convertible.

"Anything interesting happen?" asked Natsuo with feigned interest.

"Yes, actually," said Karasuba, "I bumped into Miya earlier."

"That old Hannya?" queried Natsuo.

"Yes. She's still scary. Ah I'd love to fight her!"

"You'll get your chance I'm sure," said Natsuo.

He held off on pulling into traffic. He knew Karasuba, both from her psychological profile that MBI had supplied him with and from the connection they shared as Ashikabi and Sekirei. He could feel the latent bloodlust in Karasuba boiling up, screaming for release.

"Are you sure you don't want to try your luck now?" joked Natsuo.

Karasuba shot him a sidelong glare and an infectious grin.

"No," she said, surprising him, "it can keep. I have someone more worthy in mind."

"Oh? And who's that?"

Karasuba gave an uncharacteristically girlish giggle.

"Doctor-kun!"

* * *

Takami hung up on her son with a massive grin.

As far as she was concerned, trolling her children was both her parental right _and_ incredibly fun. It made up in some small measure for the pain they'd put her through during childbirth.

She glanced briefly outside a window in MBI tower. All over Japan certain people were finding themselves relieved or replaced by forces loyal to her. Piece by piece she was building up a brick wall that would bar the way of any outside interference that Minaka would see fit to call in.

Even MBI's private army within Tokyo was being reshuffled in such a manner. A few might raise concerns about the company-wide scale of such things, but all such reports would inevitably find their way to Takami before being passed on to Minaka. He was always a dreamer, an egotist that didn't bother with the finer details once he had people he trusted to worry about them. As long as Minaka trusted Takami, he wouldn't notice – would never notice – the knife that was about to be plunged into his back.

She lit up a cigarette and looked back at her phone. There was more than enough time to have a little fun at someone else's expense. With well practiced movements, she quickly dialled up Yukari's number. Oh the _fun_ she would have at her daughter's expense.


	11. Chapter 11

A/N

I've been having a bit of a hard time with my muses lately. Whenever I want to concentrate on this, they lead me astray.  
Other than that, I've been busy with university, work, publishing some of my original works, and supporting my friends whom have gone through a nervous breakdown or a severe back injury respectively.

I'd also like to give a shout out to **Phen0m20 **for recommending me in one of his recent fics and I suggest you check his stuff out as well, especially **Tell Me**, which will please more than a few of you Tsukiumi fans out there, and the more recent **A Veil of Passion**.

Anyway, you guys have read enough excuses from me to fill a lifetime. Enjoy the chapter.

* * *

Decimating the population of the world had not been enough for the Master. Nothing it seemed could sate his lust for power and appeals to his positively enormous ego. Minaka knew well of this, as did every slave labourer living in slums that now spanned continents.

The world meekly accepted the Master's rule, cowed it seemed, by his titanic charisma and force of personality… but Minaka knew the truth. He'd spent months trying to find out why some trudged the Earth, all but worshipping the Master while other's like the infamous Martha Jones seemed utterly unaffected and defiant.

The answer had been Archangel. The Archangel Satellite network had been launched in the old days, long before the Master, then Harold Saxon, had vaulted himself to power. The fifteen satellites were transmitting a vast telepathic field, binding the human race together in mutual fear and awe.

While the nascent corporation Minaka had been building had been stripped almost entirely for the Master's grand war effort against the universe, Minaka still had a few cards up his sleeves in the form of his Sekirei and the recovered alien technology he had at his disposal… kept secret for all this time… and he'd used them in a gambit to free the world.

That gambit had just failed. Matsu had only managed to disable two of the satellites before the Toclafane made her position and butchered her, Mutsu, and Kazehana ruthlessly. That failure, however, had freed the islands of Japan. They now saw everything that the Master was and would never again submit to him, even if the telepathic field were restored. Minaka had hoped to disable the entire field simultaneously in the hopes of sparking a world wide revolt.

Japan had enjoyed its chaotic, riotous freedom from the Master for twenty four hours before he retaliated. The result of that retaliation even now rained down on Kamikura Island, the last place in the Japanese islands where life still yet resided. The ash was already choking off access the bunkers, not that it would do him much good in the end.

Minaka rubbed his chin thoughtlessly as he watched the monitors with dead eyes. Using as many Sekirei as he could to evacuate people off the mainland and hiding them in neighbouring countries had been a good idea… at the very least it had been _an_ idea. The Master would isolate and destroy all his Sekirei soon enough. The few thousand Japanese refugees they'd saved would most likely be reported and turned over to the Master by his lackeys in short order. The only three people he could think that had a good chance of surviving were Seo and his Sekirei, Hikari and Hibiki. The last he'd checked they'd escaped to Africa.

_I wish I could have saved more. I wish I could have saved so many more._ Lamented Minaka as he turned to Yume for support.

Yume laid a hand on his shoulder and squeezed gently. She would protect him as best she could when the end would come. He had no doubt she would do her part, and he had no doubt that she would fail under the weight of millions of Toclafane, just as he had no doubt Miya and Karasuba above would also fail in defending the island. While the Sekirei were superb fighters, their enormous quality could never hope to compete with the sheer number of Toclafane the Master would throw at them.

There was no point in fighting now. There was nobody left to save. The rest of the world would slave on, ever more fearful now for having witnessed the Master's Wrath. The two satellites that Matsu had disabled would be repaired in short order… all Minaka had done was get over a hundred million people killed pointlessly.

_I failed. I failed. I failed. Oh god, I failed. I failed. I failed. I have failed. I failed. I have failed so much. I have failed so many. I failed myself. I failed Takami. I failed Takehito. I failed Seo. I failed the world. I have failed. I failed. I failed. I failed._

The thoughts wound in his mind over and over and over as he gently rocked back and forth.

* * *

_I hate this._ Thought Karasuba.

Ash was raining from the sky. Death was in the air. None of it had been her doing, bringing her back to her original thought.

_I should have been the one to do this,_ she thought savagely, _I should have been the one to destroy this waste of a species! Not the Master! That idiot does this only for fear and conquest! There is no purity in his actions! No beauty! That idiot!_

But as much as she could bring herself to hate the Master, she had to admire him for what he'd brought out of Miya. The death of Takehito, sliced up by the Toclafane, had hardened her for some reason she couldn't fathom. More than that though, the sight of all the destruction that Japan had endured had seemed to set off a glint in her eye. It was as though she'd seen it all before and was simply watching a rerun. That had been fascinating.

"So," Karasuba said, tiring of silence, "Yume will outlive me after all,"

Miya cast a furtive glare.

"You speak in my presence?" said Miya acidly.

"Still angry?" teased Karasuba, unafraid in the certainty of death.

"Furious," admitted Miya.

"Good. Focus that fury on the enemy. I am your ally after all," said Karasuba.

"Were it not for the imminent arrival of our enemy I would cut you down in a heartbeat. What you said was unforgivable," glowered Miya.

"And yet you allow me to live," stated Karasuba.

"Only because I hate our enemy more, and I can use you against them,"

"You are beautiful when you're like this, Miya. Hate, rage, the desire to completely and totally destroy… only now at the end do you understand as I do!" exclaimed Karasuba with light in her eyes.

"You understand nothing. I do what I do for love. I love Takehito, and so I take the path of vengeance on his behalf, just as I love our people and took the cowards path for their sake," said Miya.

"I don't understand what you're talking about," said Karasuba in a measured tone.

"And you never will," said Miya as she unsheathed her sword, "The enemy approaches. Prepare yourself."

They advanced in uniform waves from all directions, riding the air with a grace that even birds would envy. Their ungainly spherical forms marred only by spikes. Millions of Toclafane descended to snuff out the last lives left in Japan.

With a breath Miya raised her sword. No longer did she have to be wary of leaving evidence behind. No longer would she need to be care with her power, lest she kill the innocent or the uninvolved. The only target she wished to kill beyond the numberless Toclafane stood at her back, ready to mop up any stragglers that might make it through. She no longer needed to reign in her enormous power.

She brought her sword down in an angled strike, aimed carefully to track the widest arc across the thickest formation of Toclafane. The Earth rumbled gently and the air above it rippled with heat. As the grounds trembling ceased, millions of Toclafane exploded. Beneath them, the ground melted and the sea not far off began to boil as slagged wreckage rained down.

She raised her sword and struck once more to similar effect with raw burning hatred in her eyes. Behind her, Karasuba went to work, doing the hard work of keeping the Toclafane that had managed to get close off of Miya.

Despite the tens of thousands of Toclafane that were trying to breach Karasuba's defence of Miya, she couldn't help but turn a brief but appreciative eye to the destruction that her compatriot had wrought.

_They were right, _she mused, _Miya is on an entirely different level. She's a weapon of mass destruction…_

Despite the massive gaping holes Miya opened in the Toclafane ranks, more always flooded in to fill in and reinforce. For every million Toclafane she utterly annihilated from existence, two million more rushed in.

Her attack patterns were calmly analysed by the networked hive mind that humanity would become by the year 100 trillion and countermeasures to reduce her effectiveness were already put into effect. For the Toclafane, fighting Miya was almost as much fun as butchering the helpless humans that were their distant ancestors. It made no difference if they lost a million, a hundred million or a billion of their number fighting her. Death meant nothing to them.

Karasuba came to realise that as she skewered thousands more upon her blade. Everything she was was being tested on this battlefield. She had never felt more alive, more invigorated. She knew she was fighting harder and faster than ever before even as her blade ran slick with the black fluid that served as Toclafane blood.

_Our two lives, set against the billions of Toclafane the Master will beset us with, _she thought, _The Quality of the Sekirei, the Quantity of the Toclafane. That little man with the mustache was right. Quantity is a Quality all its own…_

As Miya brought yet more Toclafane to an untimely demise she knew her situation was growing desperate. The Toclafane had analysed her attack and were swarming their position with greater and greater effectiveness. There was no option for retreat, nor was surrender a consideration in her mind. She was drawing upon reserves of strength and power she never knew she'd had.

_How fitting it should end like this,_ she thought, knowing that this great battle would be her last, _Did the Gods feel like this when the end came?_

A barely suppressed grunt signalled to her that Karasuba had grown overconfident in fending off the Toclafane. Miya didn't even need to look behind her to know that her… comrade had fallen. She knew her back was open. In moments the Toclafane would overwhelm and swarm her before butchering her like they had so many others.

With the serene calm that came with the certainty of death on the battlefield, Miya turned her blade upon herself.

* * *

Minaka's underground bunker rocked violently enough to throw Yume off her feet and Minaka out of his constant mantra of despair.

"W-what was that?" he gaped, shocked that a bunker that had been designed to withstand even the worst earthquakes had shook so violently.

"Miya," whispered Yume softly.

Minaka understood instantly. With whatever Sekirei in hiding about to be hunted down and eliminated by the Master and his lackeys, and the few Sekirei here about to be eliminated, Miya had made the ultimate sacrifice to destroy as many of her hated enemy as she could in a final blaze of glory.

Though Minaka felt that Miya would not rest in peace knowing that billions more Toclafane existed, he felt that she might take some small solace in knowing that she'd personally avenged the deaths of all Japanese citizens several times over.

"Director," said Yume, pulling Minaka out of his soul searching, "It's time you made your way to the vault."

"The vault will be of no use," he replied, apathetically, "It will only slow them momentarily,"

"Sir, I must insist…"

"No buts. There's no point anymore. The Master has won. The only question is how I choose to face my end."

Yume sighed more in defeat than in exasperation. Minaka had a point. The man had a right to choose where he died… the office within his private bunker or the reinforced vault below that bunker… the location of his death had little bearing anymore on how long he'd live even with her protection.

"You want to fight them, don't you?" asked Minaka.

"I am here to protect you, Director, that is what I will do," responded Yume.

"Like I said," sighed Minaka, "There's no point anymore. Run along. Fight them on your own terms."

"Director!" exclaimed Yume.

"I said go!" snapped Minaka, "Let me have my last moments in peace!"

Yume hesitated a moment before she took the hint. She clenched her fist and readied herself for the last fight of her life. Without a word, she left Minaka to his own company.

As soon as Yume had left his sight, Minaka pulled out a box and withdrew one of many long, thick cigars. He'd received them as a gift from a business associate in the old days and had long since been looking for an excuse to smoke them.

Happily lighting up, he watched as monitor after monitor started to broadcast static in place of security feeds. The slight rumble he felt from time to time was no doubt Yume, fighting the Toclafane on her own terms just as he'd instructed her. Eventually, the bunker became deathly quiet and the wall of monitors he'd been viewing filled entirely with static.

Sighing tiredly, the dishevelled Minaka swivelled his chair around to see that several Toclafane had infiltrated his office. They floated there serenely as he completed his one hundred and eighty degree turn and for a surreal moment they floated while he smoked, both sides staring each other down.

Eventually the 'lead' Toclafane as evidenced by floating closer and higher to Minaka than the rest spoke up.

"So. Much. _FUN!_" it exclaimed before it rushed him.

* * *

Minaka fell out of his chair.

_Not that damned nightmare again!_ Thought Minaka bitterly as he tried to dignify himself.

Ever since 2008 the nightmare had plagued him. The nightmare of the world he had lived through, a world that had somehow undone itself.

Minaka wasn't a fool. He heeded warnings when he saw them. The moment he had become aware of the terrible future that awaited them he'd done all he could to avert it, reinvested certain MBI holdings, subtly used his corporate connections to manoeuvre his counterparts into funding the campaign financing of a certain prospective leaders over others, he'd even moved his base of operations to the mainland from Kamikura.

2008 had come and gone without incident. As had the year after that and the year after that all the way to the present day. He hoped that his actions had somehow averted the Master's rise to power. Yes, Harold Saxon was considered dead, yet they had never found his body and that made Minaka very uneasy.

The Toclafane was another front he was terribly concerned with. Who or what they were was something he'd never found out. Why had they invaded Earth? Where had they come from?

As long as Minaka was unsure that the Master was well and truly dead and could never connect the cause of the Toclafane's brutal invasion, he could never be certain that the coming years would be safe. He intended that never again should humanity ever have to suffer a future as horrible as the one he'd borne witness to.

There was however one person that might be the key to ensuring that would never happen. He'd only heard of that person in whispers, a message passed on and on through the huddled masses from the legendary Martha Jones…

_He is the key,_ mused Minaka, _He's dangerous to me and everything I'm trying to do… but he may well be the only person capable of ensuring that future never happens._

With determination in his heart, Minaka pulled out his cell phone and called Natsuo.

It was time for the discipline squad to hunt down the Doctor.

* * *

"And I will need your computer to do it!" exclaimed the Doctor with glee.

"Eh?" asked Matsu with a mix of surprise and concern.

"Your computer. May I borrow it?" asked the Doctor innocently.

"Well, um… of course! It's just that-"

"Thanks!" said the Doctor and leapt at the computer.

"No!" shrieked Matsu with panic.

"Matsu," said the Doctor in his official warning tone, "What is this?"

"Ehehehe…" giggled Matsu nervously.

"I'm not laughing," said the Doctor sharply

"What's what?" asked Minato as he tried to get a look at what had set the Doctor on edge.

"It's… it's a manga I was working on earlier…" said Matsu sheepishly.

The Doctor frowned. He couldn't make heads or tails out of what he was looking at on the monitor.

"I don't get it…" the Doctor tilted his head, "Oh. _Oh!_"

"I don't get it either," said Minato.

The Doctor grabbed Minato and tilted his head at the same angle.

"All I see is…" started Minato before trailing off into an intense crimson blush, "Is that…?"

"Yes, it is," confirmed the Doctor.

"And are we?" asked Minato.

"Yes. With a pogo stick."

"A pogo stick!?" yelped Minato incredulously.

The Doctor tilted his head ever so slightly further.

"A… a pogo stick!"

"How does that even work?" queried the Doctor.

"Ah! Well, you see-" started Matsu.

"Don't tell us!" harmonised the Doctor and Minato.

The two looked at each other before looking away uncomfortably.

"She got the positioning of my mole correct," muttered the Doctor.

"And my birthmark," mentioned Minato.

"Ehehehe, just let me save and close my work and you can get to using the computer, Doctor-san," said Matsu as she moved towards the keyboard.

"I've got a better solution! DELETED!" exclaimed the Doctor.

"Nooooooooooooooooooooo!" wailed Matsu.

"Let us never speak of this again," proposed the Doctor to Minato.

"Speak of what? I have no idea what you're talking about. Weren't you going to use the computer for your plan?" said Minato.

"Good man. Yes. Let's get started…"

* * *

Bad news all.

Ah! Sensei Sama! x Onii Chan! Ai!

Chapter 11 has been unforeseeably delayed.

I apologise for this most regrettable occurrence.

~Matsu

* * *

"Arrrrghhhh!" yelled Yukari in agony.

"Yukari-san!" yelped Shiina, worried for his ashikabi, "W-what's wrong? Are you okay?"

"I-… I'll be fine…" lied Yukari unconvincingly, "Wait, no, I won't be. Shiina! This is horrible!"

Yukari thrust her phone into her Sekirei's face to show him the message she'd just received.

"Ah, Yukari-san?" he asked, not quite understanding the message without context.

"It's about my favourite boy's love manga," she whimpered.

"Ah, well…" stumbled Shiina, trying to alleviate his ashikabi's suffering, "D-don't worry, I'm here for you," he said, going for sympathy and comfort.

Yukari gripped his arm tightly and looked intently into Shiina's eyes. The rare male Sekirei gulped, unsure of whether this stare constituted killing intent or the desire to do unspeakable things in dark places to him.

"Shiina," she started, "Are you sure there aren't any other Sekirei about that are guys?" she asked as a trail of blood trickled down her lip.

Shiina gulped in relief, suddenly glad that male Sekirei were a distinct minority.

* * *

"How the hell are we supposed to find one guy in a city this large?" yelled Benitsubasa as she leapt from building to building.

"Smell," said Haihane with her characteristic monotone.

"Don't shit me! The Director's got a bug up his ass about some lanky goofball and he's sending us on a wild goose chase!" she snapped.

"Hehe… maybe the Director swings the same way as Natsuo… hehehehe," chuckled Blue Sekirei.

Her laughter was short lived as the claw using Haihane soon found herself caught by the scruff of her outfit by Benitsubasa and lifted off the ground.

"He's not gay! Natsuo loves me!" she snapped, "All he needs is someone to show him the way! That's all! I'll just entice him with my feminine charms!"

"Feminine?" asked Haihane incredulously.

Benitsubasa growled at the perceived assault on her lack of femininity.

"I am _very_ feminine!" she roared, "And I will beat the crap out of you if you disagree!"

"And just what is happening here, Beni-chan?" asked a sweet sounding Karasuba.

"Geh!" yelped Benitsubasa, dropping Haihane in surprise, "Kuroi! W-when did you get here?" she asked, referring to her by nickname.

"Just now," she said, "Why exactly are you wasting your time dawdling? Hmmm?"

"Well, you see…" stammered Benitsubasa.

Normally Benitsubasa was casual and easygoing around Karasuba. This time however she was behaving very oddly… even for Karasuba. She seemed… happy. That set her immediately on edge. Karasuba was only ever content, occasionally amused, but never happy.

"CCTV footage places the Doctor somewhere in the North," said Karasuba, "How troublesome,"

"Eh? The north?" muttered Haihane, "Isn't that where a vicious Hannya lives?"

"Eeeeh!? I've heard stories about the Hannya of the north!" said Benitsubasa.

"Ho? What kind of stories?" asked Karasuba, suddenly interested.

"Well… uh… nothing really…" Benitsubasa tried to dodge.

"Nothing? But you just said you heard stories. You wouldn't be lying to me, wouldn't you, Beni-chan?"

"Well…" started Benitsubasa before pausing to gain some courage, "Just that the Hannya almost terminated you once and that you've been out for revenge ever since…"

"Mmm. Mhmhmmh. Mfmfmfmmf. FUAHAHAHAHAHA!~" laughed Karasuba, trying and failing to suppress her laughter.

"Eh?!" harmonised Haihane and Benitsubasa.

Though the two junior members of the third generation discipline squad had known Karasuba since their induction, they had not once known her to laugh in such an unrestrained manner.

"It's true!" cried out Karasuba between bouts of laughter, "It's all true!" she confirmed, before becoming serious once again, "But there's someone I want even more revenge on."

Karasuba marched up and grabbed both junior members of the discipline squad by the scruffs of their outfits as Benitsubasa had done to Haihane before.

"Now listen to me both of you. I want to catch the Doctor. I want to kill him slowly, painfully, beautifully. If either of you kills him first or lets him get away from me, I will not forgive you. Is that understood?" she said with such enthusiastic hate and lust for violence that her fellow Sekirei, known for their penchance for violence and bloodlust, were immediately cowed.

"Yes!" harmonised Haihane and Benitsubasa enthusiastically.

"Good," said Karasuba, satisfied that neither of them would disobey her.

"But, Kuroi, what if the Hannya is helping him?" asked Benitsubasa.

"The Hannya doesn't care about the Sekirei Plan," said Karasuba nonchalantly, "If the Doctor is hiding under her skirt, it'll only be a matter of time before he has to come out, and when he does…"

Karasuba leapt from the building, leaving her sentence to dangle with her juniors.

"Yo, Haihane," said Benitsubasa, "Is it me or does Kuroi seem a bit more motivated lately?"

* * *

"This is your plan?" asked Matsu incredulously.

"Absolutely," said the Doctor.

"You can't possibly expect to stop MBI with torrents!" snapped Matsu.

"Not just torrents!" said the Doctor.

"Are those some kind of special files then? I've never seen the .flac extension before…" asked Minato.

"Why… why would you need lossless audio?"

"Good sound quality is its own reward, Matsu," said the Doctor evasively.

"I give up!" flailed Matsu, throwing her hands up in the air, "His powerlevel is too high! Saged! Reported! Called the cops!"

"Matsu-san!" exclaimed Minato as Matsu thrust her face into the nearest pillow.

"Just make sure you have a peer guardian program in place. I don't want my internet to be cut off. I'd want to die then," said Matsu with dispassionate resignation.

"Don't say that Matsu," said Minato, trying to comfort her.

"The only thing that would keep me sane would be constant sexual intercourse with Minato-kun, fufufufufufu! Experiments! Experiments!"

The Doctor facepalmed at the latest sexual shenanigans the Information Sekirei had unleashed on her mostly innocent ashikabi with a sigh.

At that moment the doorbell rang with a furious insistence.

"Oh! I'll get it!" exclaimed the Doctor, eager to leave the room.

"W-wait! I'll come with you!" shouted Minato, hoping to escape the clutches of the most perverted Sekirei in Izumo House.

* * *

Akitsu awoke in a closet.

_How did I get here?_ She pondered.

Her memory was fuzzy. She was doing… something… she couldn't quite recall what. Something about dishes? Everything fuzzed over… no matter how hard she tried to recall the memories that were otherwise almost eidetic refused to surface.

This wasn't the first time she had found herself in an odd location with no proper recollection of how she'd gotten there. Every so often she would become aware of other, smaller gaps in her memory. She thought herself forgetful in the extreme… to the point where she embarrassingly forgot certain basics. It was now so much a part of her life that Akitsu barely gave it a thought anymore.

She shook herself awake, brushing aside a small dusting of frost that she had apparently summoned in her sleep. As she moved, a small child seemed to stir. The dusting of frost had covered her too. The small girl shivered in its cold embrace.

_Kusano, number 108,_ her mind automatically supplied, _Why is she here with me?_

Akitsu was well aware as the Sekirei of Ice that she was also mostly immune to her own power's effects. She also knew that others were most decidedly _not_ and quickly brushed the frost from her small form. Gently, she carried the child to a nearby futon and wrapped her up; hoping the warmth it would provide would prevent her from developing a cold.

The faint chiming of a doorbell arrested her attention.

_Who could be here?_ Pondered Akitsu as she made for the front door.

* * *

Kazehana nursed her growing hangover with a sense of dread. The night's journey had been somewhat convoluted thanks to her less than sober navigation skills and the wind, her usual go-to option, had been rather flighty in steering her towards Izumo House.

Even so, she'd finally made it. Miya would almost certainly have some quality sake hidden about to shoo away her hangover.

"Come on, Miya, open up! Let your good friend Kazehana come in for a visit!" she shouted playfully while hammering the doorbell with as much restraint as a six year old.

The door finally opened, revealing not Miya, but a man.

A very familiar man.

"Oh, hello! I'm the Doctor! Pleased to meet you!" he said cheerfully, "I'm afraid Miya's not in right now so if you coul-"

SLAP!

Kazehana slapped the Doctor with the force of a dozen pimp hands.

"What?!" exclaimed the Doctor.

"That!" yelled Kazehana, pushing him back with accusing pokes, "Was for breaking my heart!"

She drew her hand back, ready make the other side of his face even.

"You…" she growled, voice trembling with uncharitable rage, "You left me. You broke my heart. Doctor-kun…"

Her entire body was trembling now.

"D-Doctor-kun you idiot!" she yelled, pulling him into a fierce hug and all but burying his face in her more than ample bosom.

"Oh my!" exclaimed Matsu, "A soap opera! It's a soap opera! Fufufufu!"

"D-Doctor-san! Are you alright?" asked Minato.

"MMmmfff!" struggled the Doctor.

"Never leave me again Doctor-kun!" exclaimed Kazehana, "We'll go on that cruise you always talked about!"

"Fmffmmfmf!" protested the Doctor, which only prompted Kazehana to squeeze him more tightly to her body.

"D-Doctor-sama?" asked a new voice.

All eyes turned to the newcomer, a shocked Akitsu bearing witness to the person she perceived as her Ashikabi in the arms of another.

Her face quickly gained steely determination.

"My Doctor. In another's arms. Unacceptable," she said.

Minato and Matsu exchanged glances. For Akitsu, that had practically been an hour long speech.

"Oh? Your Doctor?" teased Kazehana, "I think he belongs to me!"

"Mine," said Akitsu as she almost casually tore the Doctor out of Kazehana's grip.

The Doctor had only a moment to gasp for some much needed air before he found himself forcibly embraced by Akitsu, his face once again planted in the centre of a gorgeous Sekirei's impressive cleavage.

"My, oh my!" enthused Kazehana as she eagerly embraced both Akitsu and the Doctor, "Couldn't he be _our_ Doctor?"

Akitsu looked from where the Doctor was being suffocated and back to Kazehana, thoughtfully considering the proposal. Before she could reply however…

A wave of killing intent swept the innocent members of Izumo House away to relative safety. Only the three individuals who were the target of the killing intent stayed in place, too paralysed by fear or too suffocated to notice to even attempt to preserve their lives.

"Oh dear," said Miya, shopping dropped at either side as she brandished a radish with deadly intent, "I never expected such _clear violations of my rules_. Please be prepared to take responsibility."


End file.
